You Give Up A Few Things, Chasing A Dream

by HyperFix8

Summary:

In his final battle against Scroop, Jim suffers a life-threatening injury.

Chapter 1: Scroop's Last Word

Notes:

This is very much inspired by "Keep It Together, Lad" by Griffin Stone on FFNet. I was actually looking for fics with these specific tropes, and Griffin Stone’s fic is excellent! It was the only fic of its kind though and... well… I wanted more cake. So I made more cake. And now you, dear reader, get to have two cakes.

Since he was a toddler, Jim had dreamed of exploring the Etherium. The adventure! The danger! It all excited his young mind like nothing else could, and he had spent many nights staring up at the black sky—glittering with stars—fantasizing of some future where he’d get to go up there. He knew the dangers, and yet the cold, infinite expanse of the night sky had never felt so threatening in Jim’s life.

That is—until he found himself dangling by the edge of a Jolly Roger flag, in zero gravity, with a homicidal spider freak skittering up the mast straight towards him!

Scroop loomed above the crow’s nest, his carapace glinting like tarnished silver in the starlight. A low, rattling cackle slithered into Jim’s ears, colder than the void around them. The Mantavor’s claw—jagged, serrated—reached for the rope, the very lifeline that tethered Jim and the tattered flag to the ship. Jim’s gaze snapped upward to his own feet, swaying helplessly, as if death itself had already looped its noose around his ankles. His body screamed, every tendon pulled taut, limbs straining against the abyss’s hungry pull.

“Do say hello to Mr. Arrow!” Scroop’s voice dripped with venom as his claw sawed into the rope, his mandibles twisting into a grotesque smile.

The words struck Jim like a live wire. Adrenaline scorched through his veins. He moved before he could think, scrambling down the flag with raw, desperate strength, fingers burning as they seized the mast. Above him, Scroop’s face contorted—a mask of pure fury—before the creature lunged, claws slashing air.

“Tell him yourself!” Jim roared, kicking off the mast with every ounce of force left in him. For a breathless moment, he was weightless, flying over Scroop’s head, the wind howling in his ears.

Scroop twisted in midair, a nightmarish whirl of chitin and rage, his claws swinging in vicious arcs—snap, slash, snick—each movement slicing the emptiness between them. Jim gasped as the fabric of his shirt pulled taut against his skin, then yanked—a brutal force wrenched him skyward. The claws ripped downward, shredding cloth like parchment, exposing Jim’s chest to the frigid void as Scroop’s monstrous form tumbled upward, limbs flailing.

“I’ll gut you, you little brat!”

The words barely registered before white-hot agony exploded across Jim’s torso. Scroop’s claws raked down his chest, across his stomach—fire licking at his flesh. He choked on a scream, fingers scrambling against the mast, nails splintering as they gouged into the wood. Then—searing pain—his leg. Instinct took over. He kicked wildly, heel connecting with a sickening crunch against Scroop’s face. The Mantavor’s grip faltered.

Gasping, Jim flung his arms around the mast, hugging it like a lifeline. His muscles trembled; his breath came in ragged, shuddering gulps. But he clung on as if the universe itself were trying to tear him away.

Jim’s head snapped up just in time to see Scroop hurtling upward, colliding with the flag. The impact cracked through the rope like a gunshot. Fabric split apart under Scroop’s thrashing limbs, his snarls tearing through the air like grinding metal. Then, abruptly, the fury in his eyes flickered. Confusion twisted his features as the sky’s invisible maw swallowed his momentum, dragging him higher.

Scroop’s pupils shrank to needlepoints. His mandibles went slack, horror etching itself into every jagged line of his face.

Dangling from the mast, Jim watched—heart hammering against his ribs—as Scroop flailed, a puppet with its strings cut. The Mantavor’s shrieks clawed at the silence, growing thinner, fainter, until they were just echoes. His body shrank against the infinite black, a single crimson speck swallowed by the void.

The air itself seemed to heave as gravity reasserted its hold. Jim's stomach lurched—then WHAM—his body slammed into the crow's nest, the impact shuddering through his bones like a hammer strike.

“Agh!” The groan tore from his throat as he hit the wooden planks. Pain radiated in dull waves through his body, though his adrenaline-muddled mind couldn't yet parse how bad it was. He flexed his fingers, tested his limbs—his left leg buzzed with a sickening, staticky numbness, like a thousand needles burrowing under his skin. Then, without warning, a white-hot jolt seared through his nerves. His body locked rigid, breath hitching in short, sharp gasps until, finally, he managed to shove himself upright.

Morph erupted from a nearby pipe in a puff of soot, his usual pink form now streaked charcoal-gray. He trilled anxiously, darting around Jim's face.

“Morph?” Jim's vision swam—edges blurring, colors smearing like wet paint. The little blob's concerned chirps sounded distant, warped, as if heard through water. Morph pressed closer, his cool, gelatinous body nuzzling Jim's cheek with frantic insistence.

“Laser cannons disconnected, Captain Jimmy, sir!” B.E.N.’s voice called from below, absurdly cheerful. “Gee, that wasn’t so tough!”

Jim's throat burned like he'd swallowed hot coals. When he finally forced words out, they scraped against his vocal cords, raw and ragged.

“Nice work, B.E.N.!” The cheer in his voice sounded hollow even to his own ears. “I’ll be right down, just give me a sec!”

There was a long silence.

“Are you okay, Jimmy?”

Jim gritted his teeth and tried to straighten up. A white-hot knife of pain lanced through his torso, stealing his breath. A strangled cry escaped him as his hands flew to his chest and lower abdomen. His fingers pressed into the soft flesh below his navel—warm, too warm—and came away glistening crimson. The torn fabric clung wetly to his skin, heavy with blood.

Testing his left leg brought fresh torment. Electricity seemed to arc through his nerves, setting every fiber alight. His shaking hands found his thigh—the epicenter of the fire—where fabric of his pants had turned sodden and sticky. Peeling back the shredded cloth revealed a grotesque furrow of torn flesh, deep enough to make his vision swim. The wound pulsed obscenely with each heartbeat, and a cold, oily dread pooled in his gut, threatening to rise up his throat.

“I’m fine,” he lied, “just got grazed by that psycho’s claw.”

Grazed? The word mocked him. Entire chunks of his flesh were currently drifting through the void with Scroop, leaving ragged craters in his body that spurted blood in sync with his pulse.

Somehow—through sheer stubbornness or adrenaline—Jim dragged himself over the crow's nest's edge and onto the shrouds. His left leg had become a foreign object, buzzing with unnatural static, alternating between numbness and white-hot spikes of pain. The world flickered at the edges of his vision. One moment he was climbing down, the next his body collided with the deck in a bone-jarring impact. He barely registered the fall, only the struggle to push himself upright, his arms trembling like sails in a gale.

“Oh my- Jim! Buddy!” B.E.N.'s voice cracked with alarm as he took in the bloodied teenager managing to sit up through sheer willpower. “Mister, you lay back down and tell me where the first aid kit is, so I can- Hey! Where are you going?”

Jim's world narrowed to tunnel vision as he forced himself upright. The deck swayed beneath him like the ship had been caught in a maelstrom. Each step sent fresh fire through his abdomen, but he staggered forward anyway, careening down the stairs with all the grace of a dying comet.

The corridor walls rose up to meet him as he zigzagged like a drunk man, shoulders bouncing off bulkheads with metallic thuds—a human pinball in a cosmic arcade. His breathing came in wet, ragged gasps as he propelled himself toward sick bay. He'd been here before for Silver's fussing over minor injuries—such as the time he tried to catch a falling knife, or the plasma burn from the engine room—but this felt different. The warm seep of blood down his leg, the way his vision grayed with each heartbeat—all whispered the same terrible truth.

This wasn't a lesson. This was mortal.

Jim crashed into the sick bay, his vision swimming as he tore open the cabinet above the sink. His arm swept across the shelf in an uncoordinated frenzy, sending bottles and instruments clattering to the counter before cascading to the floor in a cacophony of glass and metal. A hot, acidic wave surged up his throat—he barely had time to double over the basin before his stomach emptied itself.

“Jimmy,” B.E.N. pleaded, his voice cracking with panic, “lay down and let me help!”

Straightening on trembling legs, Jim peeled his ruined shirt over his head with a wet, tearing sound where fabric stuck to wounds. He yanked his pants down next, the blood-soaked fabric pooling around his ankles and hitting the floor with a sickening squelch. The full horror stood completely revealed—far worse than he'd imagined.

A cruel, diagonal gash bisected his torso from collarbone to ribs, the edges gaping like hungry lips. But the wound below his navel was deeper - a vicious canyon where Scroop's claw had clearly meant to unspool his intestines like rigging.

Yet the true nightmare pulsed on his thigh. A jagged trench carved from his inner thigh and curled around to the front, its depths glistening obscenely with each heartbeat. With terrible regularity, dark arterial blood jetted from the wound—each surge painting fresh crimson across his pale flesh.

B.E.N. craned his neck over Jim's shoulder—then immediately convulsed with mechanical gagging sounds, his ocular sensors darting wildly. The synthetic retching triggered Jim's own stomach to lurch violently, bile burning at the back of his throat.

“Stop gagging!” Jim's voice cracked from strain as much as anger.. “How are you even doing that?!”

“I was programmed to feel empathy!” B.E.N. wailed between artificial heaves, his casing panels fluttering in distress. “I’m so sorry!”

Jim clenched his teeth as another dry heave racked his body, the movement sending fresh waves of pain radiating from his wounds. With a weak kick, he shoved the ruined clothing aside. Nothing worth saving. Nothing recognizable as his own.

“Go to the crew’s quarters, and get my rucksack,” he ground out, sweat dripping down his temples, “Morph, show B.E.N. where my stuff is!”

“Are you sure you don’t want my-”

“Just do it!” Jim shouted. “Please!”

Without another word of protest, B.E.N. scrambled after Morph, his mechanical limbs clattering against the floor in his haste. The moment the door hissed shut, Jim collapsed onto the stool, his body trembling from blood loss and exertion. His vision swam as he focused on the pulsating wound in his thigh.

Fingers slick with blood, he pawed through the scattered medical supplies, each breath coming in short, controlled gasps. The metallic stench of blood mixed with the sharp antiseptic tang of spilled alcohol. His searching hand finally closed around the half-empty bag of potato starch, the powder caking against his bloody fingertips. There wasn’t much left, but he hoped it would be enough to somewhat stifle the worst of the bleeding.

With a grunt of effort, Jim tore the bag open and poured its contents directly into the seeping canyon in his thigh. The starch hissed as it absorbed the blood, forming a pinkish paste that bubbled unnervingly. He dumped the remainder onto his abdominal wound, pressing shaking fingers into the torn flesh as if he could physically hold himself together.

His discarded shirt lay in a crumpled heap nearby. Jim grabbed it, teeth gritted as he ripped the sleeve clean off with one violent yank. The fabric bit into his palm as he wound it above the thigh wound, pulling tighter and tighter until his vision spotted with black. Only when the rhythmic spurting slowed to an ooze did he allow himself to breathe.

A hollow, humorless laugh escaped his lips—the sound more like a choked sob. The ache coiling in his chest had nothing to do with physical wounds. Silver's lessons on field dressings and tourniquets had been thorough, practical. The old cyborg's voice echoed in his mind as clearly as if he stood beside him: "Pressure first, panic later, Jimbo."

He wasn’t sure if he needed to cry or throw up again. He had admired and respected Silver. He had wanted to impress him. He thought they were friends. He had begun to see him as something akin to a father. Jim shook his head, willing away the swell of emotion rising up his chest. He wished he could go back and stop himself from getting so attached to Silver. He should have known better than to let himself trust another man.

The sting of betrayal burned hotter than any physical wound.

He was midway through securing a length of gauze around his waist when the door slid open. Morph zipped in, chirping anxiously, while B.E.N. nearly tripped over his own feet in his rush to help. The robot snatched a suture kit from the counter, his servos whirring with panic as he fumbled through its contents.

“You need stitches, Jimmy!”

“We don’t have time for that!” Jim's bloodstained fingers fumbled with his bag's straps before pulling out fresh clothes. The clean fabric smelled faintly of lavender soap - his mother's doing. For one dizzying moment, he saw her face, heard her voice calling him home. He shook his head violently, sweat flinging from his brow. “We gotta get back before those pirates notice we have the skiff.”

“Okay, but we’re taking this stuff with us.” B.E.N.'s chest plates whirred open, his mechanical hands snatching gauze, needles, and thread with uncharacteristic precision. The supplies disappeared into his hollow torso with metallic clinks. “You need help, Jim. Actual help.”

Fire lanced through Jim's abdomen as he wrestled into his shirt. Every movement pulled at the starch-caked wounds beneath fresh bandages. B.E.N. rushed to assist, his cool metal fingers surprisingly gentle as they guided Jim's trembling arms through sleeves. Once dressed, Jim's shaking hand dove into the pile of ruined clothes—the fabric still warm and sticky with his blood—retrieving the map.

Standing sent the world tilting. Jim's knees buckled as nausea surged, his palm slamming against the counter for support. Acid burned at the back of his throat, its bitter taste flooding his mouth. He pressed his face into the crook of his elbow, breathing through the stench of blood and bile clinging to his skin.

“Listen to me, Jim.” B.E.N.'s voice had dropped an octave, stripped of its usual manic energy. The robot's ocular lenses focused with unnatural intensity. “I should take the skiff back down, get our friends, and bring them up here so we can all escape. You’re in no shape for a treasure hunt.”

“No way!” Jim's shout came out ragged, flecks of blood spraying from his split lip. “I didn’t cross the whole Etherium just to give up now!”

“Jim, you’re in serious danger!” B.E.N.'s casing rattled with distress. “That spider guy really hurt you!”

“Oh?” Jim’s laugh was a broken thing. “Remind me, who’s the one that got us caught?”

B.E.N.'s entire frame seemed to crumple. His optic lights dimmed, the cheerful blue fading to a wounded violet. The look sent a pang through Jim's chest—but the anger still burned hotter, a molten core beneath the pain.

“Oh, Jim, I’m sor-”

“We’re wasting time.”

Jim shoved off the counter. His first step sent white-hot agony up his leg, but he kept moving. Blood seeped through fresh bandages with each limping stride down the corridor. The deck's artificial wind slapped his too-hot skin as he emerged, the ship’s dim gaslight stabbing at his eyes.

He could sense B.E.N. keeping a respectful distance behind him. He really did feel bad for hurting the robot’s feelings, but he still felt justified in his frustration. Morph darted around Jim's head like a frantic pink spark, trilling warnings as he hauled himself into the skiff. Every muscle screamed in protest, but he managed it—collapsing into the seat with a grunt, his vision swimming with black spots. The map, still clutched in his bloodstained hand, was the only thing that felt real.

As he slumped against the seatback, his eyelids fluttered shut of their own accord. Each breath came slower now, thicker—as if inhaling liquid fire through a sodden rag. Even perfectly still, his body pulsed with a symphony of pain: the deep, rhythmic throbbing of his thigh wound keeping time with the staccato stabs from his abdomen. Adrenaline's fleeting protection had burned away, leaving raw nerves exposed to the universe. The siren call of unconsciousness whispered through the pain, promising sweet oblivion.

Jim's lashes lifted with Herculean effort, the skiff's control panel swimming into focus through a haze of unshed tears.

"Let's get moving," he ground out, the words scraping his raw throat. His trembling hand gestured toward the empty seats.

As the others boarded, the skiff shuddered to life, descending through swirling atmospheric gases that painted Jim's pallid face in sickly shades of green. Each bump jostled his wounds, fresh blood warming the bandages as they pierced through the planet's bruised sky.

---

The acrid stench of burning pitch from the pirates' camp still clung to Jim's clothes as they slipped past, moving like shadows as they reentered the planet’s cavernous interior. Every step sent fresh jolts of white-hot pain up his leg, the once-familiar path stretching endlessly before him in a nightmare of twisted metal and groaning gangways. He paused again—third time in as many minutes—fingers probing the sodden bandages beneath his pants. The fabric clung to his thigh, warm and sticky, the wound beneath pulsing like a second heartbeat. Not the arterial spurting from before, but a slow, insistent leak that had his left leg glistening in the eerie green light.

A quick check of his torso revealed worse - crimson blossoms had spread across his shirt, the fabric stiffening as his blood dried in rust-colored patches. Each ragged breath made the stains grow darker at the edges. Jim gritted his teeth and pushed forward, his limp becoming more pronounced with every dozen paces. Sweat carved salty trails through the grime on his face, dripping from his chin and landing on the heated metal walkways beneath them.

Then—salvation! B.E.N.'s ramshackle hatch materialized through the swirling steam, its spherical door a beacon in the gloom. A surge of adrenaline cut through the pain as Jim lurched forward, his boots clanging against the rungs of the access ladder. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged animal as he climbed, each upward pull sending fresh waves of nausea crashing over him. The map burned in his pocket, its presence the only thing cutting through the cottony fog filling his skull.

He ignored the furnace heat crawling up his neck. Dismissed the way the world softened at the edges, colors bleeding together like wet ink. There would be time to collapse later—after he proved this wasn't all for nothing. After they saw what he'd sacrificed to bring back.

The spherical door hissed open to reveal an unnatural stillness that prickled at Jim's senses—or at least, it should have. But the thick fog of blood loss dulled every instinct, muffled every warning scream in his mind. His boots scuffed against stone as he lurched forward, vision tunneling on the shadowy mass slumped against the far wall.

"Doc!" His voice sounded foreign to his own ears, slurred and too loud in the hollow space. "Doc, wake up! I got the map!”

The mass shifted, and a large mechanical hand emerged from the darkness to snatch the map from Jim.

“Fine work, Jimbo,” Silver's voice oozed from the shadows, “fine work indeed.”

The room exploded. Torches flared to life as pirates materialized from every corner, their raucous jeers crashing over Jim like physical blows. The sudden light burned his dilated pupils—there was Delbert, there was Amelia, bound and gagged, their eyes wide with warning. Silver loomed before him, casually tossing the map like it was some tavern prize, not the culmination of everything—

Then something shifted. The smug grin faltered. Silver's single organic eye widened, his mechanical parts whirring softly as he took in Jim's condition—the blood soaking through his clothes, the grayish pallor of his skin, the way his breath came in wet, shuddering gasps. The look on Silver’s face—was that… concern?

The edges of Jim’s vision blackened like burning parchment, creeping inward, swallowing the world in slow, smothering waves. His limbs were leaden, distant—as if his body had already begun to detach from his mind. He gasped for air, but his lungs refused to fill, each breath shallow and useless. The warmth at the back of his neck had become a molten tide, flooding his skull, drowning his thoughts in thick, syrupy confusion.

Sound warped—pirates’ laughter, Silver’s voice, muffled pleas from Delbert and Amelia—all of it distorted, stretched and muffled as if he were sinking deeper into some dark, soundless sea. The floor lurched beneath him. A phantom breeze whispered through his sweat-damp hair as gravity betrayed him, and then—

Crack.

His temple struck stone. The impact shuddered through him, cold and brutal, but the pain was dull, far away. The room pulsed—once, twice—before the shadows swallowed everything.

Somewhere in the void, a hand seized his shoulder—metal fingers, cold and unyielding, biting into his flesh—and wrenched him onto his back. A palm cracked against his cheek, once, twice, the sting blooming across his face like a burst of firelight in the dark. Voices reached him as if through layers of wool—urgent, demanding—but the words dissolved before they reached his mind.

A final, feeble spark of defiance flickered in his chest. He tried to move, to speak, but his body was no longer his own. The darkness coiled around him, soft as a burial shroud, and this time—

—he let it take him.

Notes:

I meant to start posting this several days ago, but then Ned Fulmer cheated on Ariel and I’ve been coping with the fact that the only men I trust anymore are fucking ✨FICTIONAL✨

You can expect the next chapter this Sunday sometime between noon and evening (Pacific Time). Toodles!

Chapter 2: Awful Foolish of Ye, Lad

A crack—sharp as a pistol shot—shattered the silence. Voices swam around him, distorted, as if echoing through waterlogged corridors. Muffled words slipped past his ears, meaningless and distant, drowned out by the sudden whir-click-hiss of machinery priming—a sound that coiled around his spine like a venomous serpent.

Then—pain.

A tortured scream ripped through Jim’s vocal cords at the impossibly hot sensation that tore through his leg like an electric current coursing through a live wire. His nerves shrieked, every fiber of his being convulsing against the agony—writhing against whatever force was pouring what felt like molten lava into his open wounds.

A massive hand crushed his hips down with bruising force. Another smaller pair of hands held his leg flush to the ground, denying him even the smallest twitch of escape. His lungs locked. Something heavy sat on his chest, squeezing, stealing each ragged gasp before it could reach his starving lungs.

He arched violently, muscles corded like rigging in a storm, but paw-like hands—rough, furred—slammed his shoulders back into the sweat-slicked surface. The scent of burning flesh clogged his nostrils. His vision fractured into splinters of light and shadow.

“It’s almost over, Jim.”

Delbert’s voice cut through the haze, frayed but steady, somewhere above the storm of torment.

After what felt like an eternity, the burning stopped but the pain did not. The fire in his leg faded to a dull, throbbing roar—not gone, but smoldering, like hot coals buried deep in his flesh. Pain radiated outward in waves, so immense it blurred the line between consciousness and oblivion. Jim clung to awareness by sheer will, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached.

His eyelids fluttered open. The ceiling loomed above him—dark, pitted stone veined with rust-colored streaks—swaying nauseatingly as if the world itself tilted. The air clung thick and suffocating, heavy with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid sting of cauterized flesh. Yet despite the oppressive heat, his body trembled uncontrollably, muscles twitching like a gutted wire still sparking with current.

Near his legs, the mechanical whirring resumed—a sound like gears grinding against metal. Instinct screamed at him to move, escape, run—

Jim jerked upright, arms buckling beneath him—but Delbert’s hands pressed firmly against his shoulders, easing him back down. The canid’s fur was matted with sweat and dirt, his usually pristine coat streaked with grime.

“Peace, Jim, try to relax.” Delbert’s voice was steady, but exhaustion frayed its edges. “You’re badly injured, but we’re going to take care of you and get you out of here.”

Jim's awareness returned in fractured pieces. First came the oppressive humidity—thick, wet air clinging to his bare skin like a second layer of sweat. Then the chill of stone beneath his exposed back, the rough texture pressing into his shoulder blades. His pants had been yanked down to his ankles, the fabric bunched uncomfortably around his boots, while his shirt now served as a makeshift pillow, stiff with dried blood beneath his pounding head.

A flicker of humiliation burned through the haze of pain—the realization of being stripped totally naked while unconscious, his mutilated body on display for anyone in the room to see. But the sensation barely registered before being swallowed by the all-consuming fire in his leg and stomach, the throbbing in his ribs, the way each breath scraped through his raw throat. Modesty was a luxury his broken form couldn't afford.

"Wha-what'd you just do t'me?" The words tumbled from his lips thick and clumsy, his tongue heavy in his mouth. He gasped between syllables, each inhale a struggle against the weight crushing his chest. Spots danced at the edges of his vision as he fought to focus on the faces looming above him.

A familiar gravelly voice cut through the fog of pain.

"I cauterized yer leg wound." Jim turned his head—each movement sending fresh needles of agony down his neck—to see Silver crouched beside him, the cyborg's mechanical fingers gently probing the angry, blackened flesh of his thigh. The air carried the sickly-sweet stench of seared meat and burnt hair. "Couldn't let ye bleed out." Silver's organic eye glinted in the torchlight as he produced a flask. "Here, drink this."

Silver slid his organic hand under Jim's skull as he lifted his head. The moment the flask touched Jim’s lips, the pungent aroma of aged rum flooded his nostrils—oak barrels and spice with an undercurrent of smokey sweetness. Jim's brow furrowed, his cracked lips parting in silent question.

"We don't have anything else for the pain," Silver admitted, his voice uncharacteristically soft. The flask trembled slightly in his grip—whether from fatigue or something else, Jim couldn't tell. "A bit of rum might help ye though."

Memories flashed—sneaking into the Benbow Inn’s liquor cabinet, the burn of cheap ale scorching his throat. But this...this was different. The amber liquid flowed like silk across his tongue, warmth blossoming in his chest as it went down. No harsh bite, just smooth caramel and the faintest hint of sea salt. Even through the pain, Jim recognized quality when he tasted it.

After several greedy swallows—each one sending comforting heat radiating through his battered body—Silver carefully lowered him back down. The cyborg's face hardened as he turned toward the scattered medical supplies, his mechanical arm whirring softly as he sorted through B.E.N.'s haphazard collection. The light caught the fresh bloodstains on Silver's coat sleeve—Jim's blood—now dried to a rusty brown.

Silver snatched up a bottle and a strip of cloth, turning the container in his mechanical hand to examine the label. The glass glinted in the dim light, revealing some murky medicinal liquid within. With a pop of the cork, a sharp, antiseptic stench flooded the air—vinegar and herbs with an underlying bite of alcohol that made Jim’s nose wrinkle even before it touched his skin.

The first press of the damp cloth to his stomach sent a jolt through him. The solution burned, seeping into raw flesh like liquid fire. Jim sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, his muscles locking as Silver worked in slow, methodical strokes—wiping away crusted blood, sweat, and grime. Each pass of the cloth stung anew, the fibers catching on the edges of his wounds, tugging at torn skin.

Then Silver moved lower. Jim’s breath hitched as the cloth dragged over his hip bone, then between his legs, swiping away the dark streaks of blood that had dried there. A fresh wave of humiliation burned through him, hotter than the antiseptic. He was laid bare, trembling under Silver’s clinical touch—too weak to protest, too broken to even cover himself. His fingers twitched at his sides, aching to push the man away, but all he could do was lie there, exposed, as Silver cleaned him like some helpless child.

“Jimbo,” Silver’s voice was empathetic, “trust me when I say ye don’t want all this dried blood down here. It’ll itch like hell if we leave it, and ye've got enough problems as it is.”

The sodden fabric lifted with a wet plop, dripping pink-tinged solution onto Jim's pallid skin. In his periphery, Silver's face remained an impassive mask—no leer of perverse amusement or mockery, no comforting smile either. Just that damnable neutrality, as if this were any other mechanical repair aboard a ship rather than the most vulnerable moment of Jim's young life.

Jim wrenched his face away so sharply his neck popped. Hot tears welled, distorting the cavern walls into wavering smears of torchlight and shadow. His jaw clenched with enough force to send sharp pains radiating up his temples.

A gentle pressure smoothed across his forehead—Delbert’s paw, carefully brushing sweat-dampened strands of hair aside. The canid’s touch was steady, grounding, his claws fully retracted to avoid even the slightest scratch. The warmth of it seeped into Jim’s skin, a quiet anchor in the storm of pain.

Then another touch—Amelia’s fingers, calloused from years of gripping the helm, tracing slow, deliberate circles over the back of his clenched hand. Her thumb settled against the frantic flutter of his pulse, pressing just enough to remind him: You’re not alone.

And for the first time since the agony had begun, Jim dragged in a full, shuddering breath.

He turned his head slightly—every movement still sending dull throbs through his skull—and took in his surroundings. To his left, Delbert fumbled with a needle and thread, his muttering a low, distracted stream of half-formed reassurances to himself. Beside him, Amelia’s gaze kept flicking toward the cavern entrance, her jaw tight.

Jim followed her line of sight.

Silver’s crew loomed in the shadows, clustered together like scavengers waiting for carrion. Their whispers slithered through the damp air, punctuated by the occasional glance—first at Silver, then at Jim. The unspoken question hung heavier than the humidity: Why was he helping them?

It was the same thing Jim was wondering.

Silver could have killed them. Could have left Jim to bleed out. Could have handed them over to his crew without a second thought.

But he hadn’t.

And judging by the restless shifting of the pirates, the way their hands hovered near their weapons—they didn’t understand it either.

A white-hot stab of pain lanced through Jim's abdomen—just below his navel—yanking him out of his thoughts and tearing a ragged cry from his throat. His head jerked sideways to see Delbert hovering over him, the canid's muzzle twisted in a pained grimace as his trembling paws worked needle and thread through torn flesh.

“Sorry, Jim,” Delbert murmured, his ears flattening against his head. The needle slipped again, drawing another sharp hiss from Jim. “This wound needs stitches. I-I’ve never done this before.”

“What kinda doctor has never done stitches before?” Silver's mechanical arm whirred in agitation as he threw up his hands, sending shadows dancing across the cavern walls.

“I’m not that kind of doctor!” Delbert's fur bristled along his spine, his normally polished accent cracking under stress. “I have a doctorate, but I’m not a medical doctor, I’m just a—Oh, please don’t make me explain this again!”

Silver snorted, the sound echoing unnaturally loud in the tense air. His organic eye narrowed as he turned back to Jim, the flickering torchlight carving deep shadows into the lines of his face.

"So, Jimbo," he said, the casual tone at odds with the intensity of his gaze, "how'd ye find yerself in such a state?"

"I had—” Jim's words dissolved into wet, hacking coughs that sent fresh agony rippling through his battered torso. When he could speak again, his voice came out rough as sandpaper: "I had a run-in with Scroop on the ship."

"I see." Silver's mechanical fingers clenched and unclenched. The pause stretched, thick with unspoken questions. "And what became of Mr. Scroop?"

“I killed him!” Jim declared. His chest heaved, every labored breath whistling through clenched teeth. “I killed him the same way he killed Mr. Arrow!”

The cavern air turned to ice. Even Delbert's clumsy stitching stilled. Somewhere in the shadows, a pirate drew in a sharp breath. The silence pressed down like a physical weight until—

Amelia's slender fingers, cool and surprisingly strong despite their delicate claws, twined through Jim's blood-crusted hand. Her grip tightened with wordless gratitude, the subtle pressure speaking louder than anything else could.

“What’d I tell ye about pickin’ yer fights, boy?” Silver asked, seeming unmoved by the fact that one of his own crew was dead.

“Well, I won, didn’t I?”

A pained grin split Jim's ashen face. The expression sent fresh crimson trickling from a split in his lip. Silver hummed low in his throat, his organic eye tracking the way Jim's chest shuddered with each shallow breath. The boy looked half-dead already—skin waxy, pupils blown wide with pain, yet still defiant even as he lay bloody on the stone floor.

“Touché,” was all the cyborg could manage as a response, but he couldn’t stop the minute smile that tugged on the corners of his mouth.

For just a heartbeat, something flickered behind the cyborg's hardened gaze—a spark of pride that softened the lines of his face before he forcibly schooled his features back into sternness. Jim caught it anyway, the brief warmth cutting through his pain like sunlight through storm clouds.

“Here’s the plan.” Silver's mechanical arm gestured sharply, the movement sending shadows dancing across the cavern walls. “Once the doctor’s done stitchin’ ye up, ye and yer friends will be going back to the ship with Grewnge, and there ye will stay until we’re done down here. Got it?”

“You can’t just-”

“That is final, Jimbo!” Silver's finger jabbed the air inches from Jim's nose, the metal gleaming dangerously in the torchlight. “After that, I’ll drop ye and yer friends off at the nearest port so ye can get real help.”

Amelia's cool fingers tightened around Jim's wrist, her claws pricking gently at his pulse point.

“You need antibiotics and fluids, Mr. Hawkins.” Her voice carried the same crisp authority she used on the bridge. “We have all of that on the ship, so it is critical we get you back up there as soon as possible.”

“I didn’t come all this way just to lay around on the ship!” Jim's protest ended in a wet cough, his body jerking against Delbert's restraining hands.

“Jim, you’re in no condition for a treasure hunt!” said Delbert.

“I tried to tell him the exact same thing, Doc!” B.E.N. cried. “Ya know, I don’t have much experience with kids, but Jim certainly is a stubborn one, and—you let me know if I’m rambling—Anywho…”

As B.E.N. continued to ramble, Delbert tied off the final clumsy stitch with hands that trembled slightly. The needle slipped, drawing a sharp hiss from Jim as the canid pressed a gauze pad over the angry red wound. A deep sigh escaped Delbert when he looked down to find Jim's fever-bright eyes pleading with him, the boy's stubbornness undimmed by blood loss or pain.

“Jim, we only want what’s best for you,” Delbert murmured, his voice cracking. He adjusted his glasses with a bloodstained paw, leaving smears on the lenses. “Besides, your mother would kill me if I let you go about in this state!”

Silver's mechanical hand clamped around Jim's thigh as he wound fresh bandages, the pressure just shy of painful.

“Better listen to yer doctor friend, Jimbo,” he rumbled, the warmth of his organic hand strangely comforting against Jim's feverish skin. “Wouldn’t want to break yer mother’s heart by dying out here, would ye?”

The words struck like a physical blow. Jim's breath hitched as Sarah Hawkins' face flashed behind his eyelids—the way her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes when he came home safe, how her hands always trembled just slightly whenever she patched up his scrapes. Jim was well aware of everything she had sacrificed to raise him—mostly by herself—and all he ever did was worry her. Now here he was, possibly at death’s door, and there was a chance he would never see her again. Silver was right. Jim dying would break her heart, and he hated the thought of causing her any more misery than he already had.

But the siren call of Flint's trove still pulsed in his veins, warring with the image of his mother's smiling face…

Then another dreadful thought occurred to him.

“How long will it take to get to the nearest port?” He asked.

The way Delbert and Amelia exchanged glances spoke volumes before either opened their mouths. Amelia straightened her posture, the movement making her wince as she adjusted her sling. When she spoke, her crisp captain's voice carried an unfamiliar waver.

“The nearest port is four weeks out,” she said. Her good hand flexed at her side, restless. “Perhaps we can shave off a few days, but the Legacy can only move so fast…”

Her words hung in the humid air like a death sentence. Jim stared at the cavern ceiling, watching torchlight dance across the uneven stone. Then, without warning, a hysterical laugh bubbled up from his chest—raw and jagged and utterly devoid of humor.

“Wow!” The laughter kept coming, each peal sending fresh agony through his battered ribs. Tears streamed down his temples, mingling with the blood and grime. “Yeah, there’s no way. I’m not gonna make it that long.”

Delbert's paws gripped Jim's shoulders with surprising strength, forcing their eyes to meet.

"Yes, you will, Jim!" His voice cracked with uncharacteristic volume, the words bouncing off the cavern walls. "You will be okay, and I will not have it any other way!"

Jim's laughter died into wet, shuddering breaths. He reached up to pat Delbert's arm with a bloodstained hand, his smile brittle as old parchment.

"Yeah sure, Doc."

Jim suddenly became very fascinated by the sight of his own hand—pale, trembling, and streaked with blood—as he held it in the air, above his face. He turned it slowly, marveling at the way the torchlight glowed through his fingers, painting his skin amber and gold. It didn’t even look like his own hand anymore—just some strange, disconnected thing hovering in the air. A giggle bubbled up from his chest, light and delirious.

Then he pointed his index finger, and his hand sailed through the air and poked a very confused Delbert on the tip of his snout.

“BOOP!” Jim dissolved into another fit of laughter so violent it made his ribs ache. His vision blurred, tears spilling over as he gasped for breath between giggles.

“Oh great!” Delbert cried, his ears flattening in distress. “Now Jim’s lost his mind!”

Jim wiped at his eyes, smearing blood and sweat across his cheeks.

“Hey Doc, you wanna hear something really funny?”

“There is nothing funny about any of this, Jim.”

“No, trust me, this is hilarious,” Jim slurred, his voice thick with hysteria. “Back when that judge put me on probation, I wanted to die. But now that I’m, like, actually dying, I don’t wanna die anymore!”

Another laugh tore out of him—or was it a sob? His chest heaved, the sound raw and jagged, caught somewhere between terror and absurdity. He pressed his palms to his face, shoulders shaking, unsure if he was laughing or crying or both. The dread coiled tighter in his gut, his breaths coming in short, panicked hitches.

Then—warmth.

Silver’s calloused fingers carded gently through his sweat-damp hair, the touch steadying—soothing.

“Easy there, lad. Deep breaths now. This is not the time to panic.”

Jim focused on the weight of Silver’s hand in his hair—the rhythmic scratch of blunt nails against his scalp. Through the haze of panic, he could hear the cyborg speaking softly to him like he had the night Mr. Arrow died. Slowly, Jim calmed down, but that overwhelming sense of doom lingered.

“Ye're not gonna die, Jim,” Silver said, keeping his voice low. “Not on me watch.”

Jim peeked through his fingers up at Silver, desperate to believe him. The man’s words and actions over the last twenty-four hours had been… confusing, to say the least. First he cared about Jim, then he didn’t care at all, and now he cared again? Jim didn’t know what to believe anymore. This had to be part of some grander scheme that would work out in Silver’s favor.

What kind of game was this man playing?

The murmurs from Silver's crew swelled like a rising tide, their voices sharpening into jagged barbs that echoed off the cavern walls. Then, as one, they surged to their feet—a wall of scarred faces and bared teeth all turned toward Silver. The torchlight painted their expressions in flickering menace.

“Why don’t ya just kill them, Captain?!” one of them screeched. This was immediately followed by rowdy shouts of agreement from the other crew members.

“They’re only holding us back!”

“Scroop was right!”

“You’ve been coddling that brat since day one!”

Jim's breath hitched as he caught the fleeting tension in Silver's posture—the slight tightening around his organic eye, the almost imperceptible tremor in his mechanical fingers. It became clear to Jim that Silver was just barely maintaining his authority as their Captain. If the crew decided to turn on him, it would be game over for Jim and everyone else. Thinking fast, he suddenly got an idea.

“You won’t get very far without me!” Jim’s voice echoed throughout the cavernous room, surprisingly loud and strong despite his weakened state. “I’m the only one here who can open the map!”

Silver closed his eyes and smiled as he shook his head, appearing relieved, but it was only a moment before his face hardened again. As if to test Jim’s claim, Silver held up the map and experimentally twisted it with his cybernetic fingers. When it didn’t give, he muttered a string of curses and rotated his mechanical arm, using every tool in his arsenal to try and pry the sphere open. He put on a big show, and after several fruitless attempts to open the map, Silver finally shoved it into Jim’s bloodstained hands.

“Go on, then. Open it,” said Silver. His arm spun as he produced a flintlock laser pistol and pointed it at Delbert and Amelia. “And I’d get to it if I were ye.”

Jim got the distinct feeling that Silver was bluffing, but he played along anyway. He glared at Silver as his fingers raced across the sphere’s surface, pushing buttons and twisting it by memory. Parts of the sphere sunk in as it twisted open with a burst of emerald light. Treasure Planet materialized before them, its holographic contours casting an otherworldly glow across the awestruck faces of the crew.

"Oh, the powers that be," Silver breathed, his voice thick with reverence. His mechanical fingers twitched as if aching to grasp the emerald light suspended before them. "Would ye look!"

The holographic image shimmered, its intricate celestial map collapsing inward like a dying star. Then, with a pulse that sent shadows dancing across the cavern walls, it reconfigured—morphing into a single, razor-thin beam of viridian light. It cut through the stale air like a blade, slicing past the gathered pirates and spearing straight through the hideout's gaping entrance.

Silver was the first to move, his boots kicking up dust as he lunged for the opening. His crew surged after him in a chaotic tide of ragged coats and worn-out boots, their collective breath catching as one.

The beam arced across the night sky—a luminous javelin hurled by some unseen hand—before plunging earthward miles away. Its emerald light spilled across the distant fungal forest, setting the colossal caps of bioluminescent mushrooms aglow. Towering sporophores, some as wide as ship sails and twice as tall, pulsed faintly in response to the energy passing through them. The beam illuminated the thick spore mist that coiled between their gnarled, chitinous stalks, turning the drifting particulate into swirling galaxies of green-hued dust.

A beat of stunned silence.

Then—

The pirates erupted. Rough voices howled in triumph, fists pumping the air as cutlasses gleamed in the reflected light. Someone fired a plasma pistol skyward, the shot sizzling through the atmosphere in a streak of violet. Silver's laughter boomed above the din, rich and unbridled, his mechanical arm raised in a victorious salute.

“Finally!” he roared, the word thick with decades of hunger. “Grewnge, get Jim and the others back to the ship while we-”

The beam of light snapped back like a whip, the green luminance sucked violently into the hideout. Silver spun on his heel just in time to see Jim's bloodied fingers twist the map shut with a decisive click.

“You want the map,” said Jim, “you’re taking me too.”

“Jim, no!” Delbert cried.

“Jim, YES!” he shot back.

“Mr. Hawkins,” said Amelia, “you are being reckless, and as your captain I must insist-”

“I’m going!” Jim shouted, his voice raw. “I promised my mom I’d rebuild the inn. I found the map, and I’m not leaving till I get my cut of the treasure.”

“Ye’ll get yer cut of the treasure if ye open that map and get yer skinny ass back on the ship!” Silver shouted.

"I wanna go with you!" The whine in Jim's voice made him cringe inwardly, but desperation clawed at his throat. This wasn’t just about gold—this was about proving he wasn’t the failure everyone thought he was. About seeing the thing that had kept him dreaming through every shitty night on Montressor.

“You’re acting very childish, Mr. Hawkins!” Amelia scolded.

“I know and I don’t care!” Jim clutched the map tightly to his chest, afraid one of the adults might try and take it away from him. “I’ve been reading about Flint’s trove since I was three, and now I have the chance to see it! I know it’s stupid, but please don’t take this opportunity away from me!”

“Jim-”

“Doc, even if we start heading to the next port right now, I don’t…” Jim’s voice began to waver. “I don’t think I’m…”

The unspoken words hung heavy in the humid air.

The panic that had gripped him earlier dulled into something quieter, something worse—acceptance. The math was simple: four weeks to port. A leg wound leaking through gauze. A fever climbing his spine like a vine. Even if by some miracle he survived the trip, he’d be a ghost by the time they reached help.

Delbert’s breath hitched. His spectacles fogged instantly as tears welled, and he tore them off, scrubbing furiously at the lenses with his stained shirt. The motion was too sharp, too frantic, like if he just polished them hard enough, the reality in front of him might change.

A suffocating silence settled over the group. The only sounds were Jim’s ragged, wet breathing and the ceaseless click-whirr-grind of Silver’s mechanics—like the internal workings of some cruel timepiece counting down their dwindling options.

With a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl, Silver knelt beside Jim again. His organic hand was surprisingly gentle as he hooked fingers into the waistband of Jim's trousers, carefully working the fabric back over his bandaged thigh without jostling the wounds. The coarse material dragged against sweat-slicked skin, making Jim hiss through clenched teeth.

Across from Silver, Delbert had descended into quiet hysterics—murmuring a string of apologies to Sarah, as if she were there to hear him.

"I'm so sorry, so sorry—" The words spilled out between hiccuping breaths, his paws trembling as he gathered Jim's ruined shirt from where it had been folded under his head.

Amelia moved with military precision, her good arm sliding under Jim's shoulders to lift him just enough for Delbert to work the shirt over his head. The captain's claws retracted to blunt nubs as she guided each of Jim's arms through the sleeves, her touch firm but careful around the worst of his injuries.

Jim's fingers trembled against the fabric, the simple act of tucking in his shirt sending fresh waves of pain radiating through his abdomen. The belt buckle clinked as he fastened it, the leather biting into his hips—a familiar pressure that somehow made him feel less exposed, less vulnerable. A shuddering breath escaped through his nose, the air thick with the coppery stench of his own blood and the acrid tang of antiseptic.

“Awful foolish of ye, lad,” said Silver.

Silver's massive hand slid beneath Jim's back with surprising gentleness, his fingers spanning nearly the full width of the boy's torso as he lifted him effortlessly. The world tilted as Jim found himself cradled against Silver's broad frame, his body suspended in the crook of the cyborg's arm as if he were carrying a baby. Silver's bicep pillowed Jim's head, the warm muscle firm yet yielding beneath his sweat-damp hair. The pirate's palm cupped the backs of Jim's legs, supporting his weight with careful precision—avoiding the worst of his injuries while keeping him securely balanced.

Jim's breath hitched at the sudden vulnerability of the position—his arms instinctively curling toward his chest, where he clutched the map as tight as he could. The angle left him staring up at the cavern ceiling, his view dominated by Silver's face looming above him, backlit by torchlight. Every exhale from the pirate warmed Jim's forehead, carrying the faint scent of salt and tobacco.

Then came the mechanical whirring as Silver's cybernetic arm reconfigured, gears grinding with a series of sharp clicks and hisses. The cane that emerged was polished wood, its surface worn smooth from years of use. Silver planted it firmly against the ground, leaning his weight onto it with a barely perceptible wince—the stiffness in his peg leg evident from the way it moved with unnatural rigidity.

The memory flashed behind Jim’s eyes—the thunk of his blade sinking into Silver’s prosthetic leg, the way the cyborg had staggered back in shock. The satisfaction he should have felt at that moment was nowhere to be found now. Instead, something hollow and aching gnawed at his ribs as he lay cradled in Silver’s arms like some helpless thing, too broken to even struggle.

Silver turned toward his crew, his voice booming over the din. “Everyone in the longboat! Let’s get a move on, shall we?”

The pirates whooped and jostled one another as they clambered aboard, shoving Delbert and Amelia ahead of them. The two stumbled, their bound hands making balance impossible, and Jim’s stomach twisted as he watched them get manhandled into their seats. Silver took the spot at the prow, positioning Jim carefully in the crook of his arm, away from prying eyes. At his command, Jim reopened the map, the beam of light bursting forth like a living thing, arcing across the sky in a luminous trail. The skiff’s engine growled to life, vibrating through the deck as one of the crew steered them after it.

Then Jim felt Silver’s hot breath on his face when the man leaned in close.

“I’m sorry ye got hurt, lad.” Silver whispered so only Jim could hear him. “I never meant for anythin’ bad to happen to ye.”

Jim tried to summon the fury he knew he should feel, tried to glare up at Silver with all the venom left in his battered body—but his defiance crumbled before it even reached his eyes. He wanted to hate him. Needed to. Silver had shattered his trust, had proven himself just like all the others who’d walked away.

And yet—

Silver’s mechanical fingers lifted, the motion so slight it could have been dismissed as an adjustment. But then they brushed against Jim’s forehead, carefully pushing a sweat-damp strand of hair aside. His lips formed silent words—I’m so sorry—and something in Jim’s chest cracked open.

His vision blurred, hot tears welling despite his best efforts to force them back. How dare he. How dare Silver make him hope, make him want to believe there was still something real beneath all the lies. That was the cruelest cut of all—worse than any blade, any betrayal.

Because Jim still wanted to trust him.

And that—that hurt worse than any wound.

Jim’s skull throbbed in time with his pulse, each heartbeat sending fresh waves of pain radiating through his temples. He squeezed his eyes shut against the dizzying sway of the skiff, the warm wind whipping through his hair as they soared above the alien forest. Below, the towering fungal caps blurred into a sea of bioluminescent greens and purples, their glow streaking past like comets in the twilight.

Then—quiet.

The rushing winds stilled as the skiff shuddered to a halt, the hum of the engine dying to a whisper. Jim kept his eyes closed, fingers tightening around the map. A grunt escaped him as Silver shifted, the sudden movement jostling Jim’s wounds when the cyborg heaved himself over the side. The impact of Silver’s boots hitting the ground sent a jolt through Jim’s body, sharp enough to make his breath hitch.

Something cool and gelatinous pressed against his cheek. Jim cracked his eyes open to find Morph inches from his face, the little blob vibrating with anxiety, his pink form flickering between shapes like a distressed candle flame.

“I’m fine, Morph,” Jim murmured, lifting a sluggish hand to stroke the creature’s surface. His fingers sank slightly into Morph’s malleable body, the texture like chilled pudding. With a soft blorp, Morph nuzzled under the hem of Jim’s collar, his tiny weight a comforting presence against Jim’s collarbone.

Silver adjusted his grip on Jim and forged ahead, his boots crushing through the dense undergrowth. Behind them, the pirates’ excited chatter rose and fell like the buzz of insects, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of greed and anticipation. And there, weaving through the noise like an unstoppable force—B.E.N.’s rambling monologue about an android named Lupe.

Stars above. Jim let his head loll back against Silver’s arm. Would it kill him to shut up for five minutes?

The green beam from the map—once a steady guide—suddenly flickered like a dying star. Then it pulsed, quick and erratic, casting jagged shadows across the pirates’ faces.

"We're getting close, lads!" Silver bellowed, his voice cutting through the humid air. His organic eye gleamed with feverish anticipation. "I smell treasure a-waitin'!"

The crew erupted into a frenzy. Boots pounded the earth as they surged forward, their weapons glinting in the pulsating light. Silver’s mechanical arm whirred to life, its blade extension slicing through the thick overgrowth with a sound like tearing flesh. Vines and fungal stalks collapsed in its wake, revealing—

"Nothing!" Onus shrieked, his tiny frame trembling with outrage. He kicked at the dirt. "One great, big stinking hunk of nothing!"

A beat of stunned silence. Then—

"What's going on, Jimbo?!" Silver’s voice was a blade’s edge away from fury.

Jim’s stomach dropped. The sphere in his hands gave a violent shudder, the light retracting so fast it left afterimages dancing in his vision. Before he could react, the map sealed itself with a final, ominous click. His fingers flew over its surface, twisting, pressing, clawing—but it remained stubbornly locked.

Above him, Silver’s mechanical eye flared crimson, its glow casting a hellish light across the sharp planes of his face.

"I-I don’t know!" Jim’s voice cracked. "I can’t get it open!"

The crew exploded.

"We should’ve never followed this boy!" Bird Brain Mary screeched, her feathers bristling.

"Let’s rip his gizzard out, right now!"

A chorus of snarls and threats rose like a tidal wave—promises of flaying, of bones snapped like kindling, of Jim’s entrails strung up as a warning. The air thickened with the stench of sweat and bloodlust.

Jim’s gaze darted to Silver. The man’s neck cords stood taut as rigging lines, his eyes flicking between Jim and the advancing mob. The unspoken truth hung between them: They’re seconds from tearing you apart.

Then—a glint of something unnatural in the dirt.

Jim twisted in Silver’s grip, his heart hammering. There, near Silver’s peg leg—a perfectly circular depression in the earth, half-hidden under a veil of moss. The size of the map. The size of hope.

"Put me down!" Jim didn’t wait for permission. He thrashed until Silver released him, then collapsed onto his knees, fingers scrabbling at the moss. It peeled away like rotten fabric, revealing intricate carvings beneath—mirror images of those on the sphere.

"Throw him off the cliff!"

No time. No choice.

Jim slammed the map into the divot.

The world shuddered.

A shockwave of emerald energy erupted from the point of impact, racing across the gulley in jagged veins. The ground itself seemed to breathe, pulsing with otherworldly light. The pirates staggered back, their threats dying in their throats as the energy coalesced—then surged upward in a blinding pillar.

Jim threw up an arm against the glare, his eyes watering. The beam split the sky, its apex unfolding like some colossal flower—stretching, warping, until its edges met in a perfect triangle.

A portal.

Vast. Hungry.

And humming with the promise of everything Flint had left behind.

Notes:

Next chapter will be up next Sunday, between noon and evening (Pacific Time)!

Chapter 3: One More Ride

Jim sagged against B.E.N.'s rusted frame, his injured leg trembling with the effort of standing. Before him, Silver waded through an ocean of gold, the coins and jewels sloshing around his knees like water, their clinking echoes bouncing off the cavernous walls. Each step the cyborg took sent ripples through the treasure, sunlight fracturing through gemstones to paint the chamber in fractured rainbows.

So this is it, Jim thought numbly. Silver only needed me to get here.

The realization settled in his gut like lead. Hadn't Silver said it himself?

Ye think I'd risk it all for the sake of some nose-wiping little whelp?

Jim exhaled sharply and forced himself to look around. This—this—was what he'd spent a lifetime dreaming about. Flint's trove. The Loot of a Thousand Worlds.

And it was breathtaking.

Pillars of gold stretched as far as the eye could see, stacked with artifacts from galaxies Jim had only read about in storybooks. Jewels the size of fists glimmered in strange alien hues—some pulsing with inner light, others so black they seemed to swallow the air around them. Weapons of impossible craftsmanship lay half-buried, their edges still sharp after centuries. It was more than treasure. It was history.

Three-year-old Jim would have absolutely lost his mind seeing this. Three-year-old Jim would have raced through this trove with his arms outstretched, laughing, alive with wonder.

But fifteen-year-old Jim?

He felt... hollow. Wretched.

The gold was cold under his boots. The jewels held no stories. The weapons had no names.

And suddenly, standing there at the edge of a thousand worlds' worth of wealth, Jim Hawkins understood:

He hadn't come for the treasure.

He'd come for the man who'd made him believe he was worth something.

And that man was walking away.

The cavern erupted into chaos as Silver’s crew surged forward, their raucous cheers bouncing off the vaulted ceilings. Pirates threw themselves into the glittering drifts of treasure like children into a snowbank, their gnarled hands raking through coins and gemstones with feverish greed. One of them—a hulking brute—crammed fistfuls of rubies into his shirt, the gems catching the light and painting his scarred face bloody crimson. Another draped herself in diamond necklaces until her neck disappeared beneath the weight, her laughter sharp and unhinged.

Jim remained frozen at the threshold, the portal’s eerie glow casting long shadows behind him. B.E.N. shifted nervously at his side, his optical sensors darting erratically as he mumbled under his breath.

“This is all so familiar… too familiar… but why can’t I remember—?”

Morph quivered against Jim’s shoulder, his small form flickering between anxious shapes.

Testing his weight, Jim gingerly pressed down on his injured leg—and immediately recoiled with a bitten-off gasp. White-hot agony lanced up his thigh, the wound pulsing in protest. No. No chance of running.

His stomach sank—until a glint of tarnished metal caught his eye.

There, half-buried under a mound of golden chalices, lay the skeletal remains of a ship. Its hull was pockmarked with age, the wood bleached pale by time, but its mast still stood tall, draped in strands of pearls like cobwebs. A way out. And—as an added bonus—it was loaded with treasure.

Jim elbowed B.E.N. sharply, cutting off the robot’s rambling. He tilted his chin toward the derelict vessel, his voice barely above a whisper.

“B.E.N., come on.” His fingers curled into fists at his sides. “We’re getting out of here, and we’re not leaving empty-handed.”

Jim sat, braced himself, then pushed off—sliding down the mountain of gold in a cascading shower of coins. The treasure shifted like liquid beneath him, clinking and whispering as he hit the bottom of the dip with a jolt that sent pain screaming through his wounds. Gritting his teeth, he rolled onto his hands and knees, the coins biting into his palms as he began the agonizing climb up the opposite slope.

Every movement was a battle. The moment he found purchase, the treasure would shift—emeralds skittering away under his fingers, gold doubloons sliding like loose sand beneath his knees. Sweat dripped from his brow, stinging his eyes as he fought for each inch of progress. His muscles trembled with exhaustion; every time he paused to gasp for air, the unstable slope would betray him, sending him sliding back down in a clattering avalanche of wealth.

B.E.N. materialized beside him in a flurry of mechanical whirring, ducking under Jim’s arm to haul him upward with surprising strength. Even Morph fluttered desperately at Jim’s collar, his tiny form straining with effort as he pulled like a miniature towline. Together, they inched their way up, coins scattering in their wake.

At the summit, Jim’s vision swam as he scanned the ship’s hull. His gaze locked onto a precarious tower of ancient chests—their wood warped, their iron bands rusted—piled haphazardly against the keel. Without hesitation, he staggered forward and leapt onto the nearest one, the impact sending a fresh wave of fire through his body. Reaching up, his fingers scraped against the gunwale’s rough edge, splinters digging into his skin as he clung for dear life. His legs dangled uselessly, his boots scrambling for traction against the weather-beaten hull.

“B.E.N.,” Jim grunted, his voice strained. “Give me a boost, will ya?”

“Aye aye, Captain Jimmy!”

Before Jim could react, B.E.N.’s cold metal hands clamped onto his backside and heaved. Jim yelped as he was launched upward—suddenly airborne—before crashing face-first onto the deck in a tangle of limbs. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs, his wounds shrieking in protest as he lay there, gasping like a stranded fish.

B.E.N. scrambled aboard in a panic, his voice modulator pitching wildly.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry, Jim!” he cried. “I severely underestimated my strength! Are you—”

Jim’s hand slapped over B.E.N.’s mouth with a smack that echoed through the derelict ship.

“Shh!” he hissed, his whisper fraying at the edges. “Keep it down or they’ll catch—”

A flicker of light behind B.E.N.’s shoulder.

Jim’s breath seized in his throat.

“AAHH!”

The scream tore from him before he could stop it. B.E.N. whirled around with a metallic shriek, his optical sensors flashing wildly. Morph let out a sound like a boiling teakettle and dove into Jim’s collar.

There, slumped in a throne of blackened driftwood and tarnished gold, sat the remains of Captain Nathaniel Flint.

Time froze.

The skeleton loomed over them, its spine fused to the chair by decades of undisturbed stillness. The empty sockets of its six eyes seemed to drink the light, darker than infinity, deeper than space itself. Jim’s pulse hammered in his ears—half expecting those skeletal fingers to twitch, for that lipless grin to split wider in greeting.

“Captain Flint…” Jim’s voice was barely a whisper. He took a stumbling step forward, his boots crunching on something brittle—bones?—as he forced himself closer.

“In the flesh!” B.E.N. yelped, then immediately backtracked, his voice pitching higher. “Well… except for skin, organs, or anything that resembles flesh. Th-that’s… not there.”

Jim leaned in, his breath hitching. Up close, the skull was a nightmare of angles—the six orbital cavities gaping like hungry mouths, the jawline studded with jagged, predator’s teeth. Tattered fabric clung to the collarbones, the threads whispering as they shifted in some unfelt breeze.

It shouldn’t have been possible for something dead to watch him.

And yet.

Jim’s skin prickled. The stories had never done Flint justice. The man—no, the monster—had been a mountain in life. Even now, reduced to bone and legend, he radiated a terrible energy. The kind that pulled men to their doom.

A coin shifted somewhere in the hold.

Jim nearly jumped out of his skin.

B.E.N.'s voice dropped to a haunted whisper, his optics flickering uneasily. "It's so odd, you know? I mean, I remember there was something horrible Flint didn't want anyone else to know, but I just can't remember what it was!"

His mechanical hands twitched at his sides, gears whirring in frustrated cycles.

Jim's gaze locked onto Flint's skeletal hand—the yellowed fingers curled in a death grip around some unidentifiable object. The shape teased at his memory, familiar yet alien. Without hesitation, he reached out and pried at the brittle bones. They snapped with dry, sickening cracks, like kindling underfoot, releasing their prize into his palm.

"Oh, a mind is a terrible thing to lose!" B.E.N. wailed, his voice modulator cracking with static.

The moment the fragment settled in Jim's hand, realization struck like lightning. His eyes darted between the object and the gaping cavity in B.E.N.'s skull—a perfect match.

"B.E.N.," Jim said, his voice tight with urgency. "I think I just found your mind! Hold still!"

Before the robot could protest, Jim gripped the back of his head. The moment the fragment neared the opening, a dozen wiry tendrils burst forth like mechanical serpents, latching onto the piece with violent precision. B.E.N.'s entire body convulsed—his optics flashing erratically, sparks erupting from his joints in staccato bursts. The air filled with the acrid stench of ozone and burning circuits as his voice box spat out fragmented syllables:

"ErRor—r-r-r—sysTEM REbOOt—FlInT—nO—nO—nO—"

Then—

Silence.

B.E.N. went perfectly still. When his optics reactivated, they burned with a new, unsettling clarity. His optics blazed with sudden, manic energy as his voice ricocheted off the ship’s rotting hull.

"It's all flooding back!" he cheered, gears whirring wildly. "All my memories! Right up until Flint pulled my memory circuits, so I could never tell anybody about his BOOBY TRAP!"

The word trap hadn't even finished echoing when—

BOOM.

The explosion hit like a god's hammer. The ship lurched violently, throwing Jim to the deck as the entire cavern convulsed. His ribs screamed when he impacted the wood, pain spiderwebbing through his already battered body. Above them, stalactites shattered like icicles, raining lethal shards onto the treasure below.

Oh, you idiot! Jim's mind roared at him. His fingers clawed at the splintering deck as another tremor rocked the ship. Of course Flint had rigged this place to blow! Jim had devoured every legend, every account of the pirate's vicious cunning—how he'd salted his treasures with fire and blood. And yet Jim walked right into his trap like some starry-eyed child.

Teeth gritted, Jim dragged himself across the shuddering deck on elbows and knees, each movement sending fresh agony through his wounds. The control desk loomed ahead, its brass fittings rattling from the quakes. He grabbed the edge, hauling himself up just in time to see—

Chaos.

The blast had unleashed a wave of red-hot energy from the planet's core, slicing through gold and gemstone alike. Pirates scrambled like rats, their screams barely audible over the cataclysm. And there, in the eye of the storm—

Silver.

The cyborg knelt amidst the destruction, his mechanical arm scooping treasure into his coat with frantic, greedy motions. Rubies spilled from his pockets as he moved, his single-minded avarice rendering him oblivious to the collapsing world around him.

Jim's stomach turned. He wrenched his gaze back to the controls, fingers flying over dust-caked dials. The ship groaned in protest, but he could feel the old girl still had life in her. Somewhere beneath centuries of neglect, her heart still beat.

All he had to do was make it pound.

Jim wedged himself beneath the console, his back scraping against corroded metal as sparks rained down around him.

"You go back and help the captain and Doc!" he shouted over the ship's groaning hull. His fingers trembled as they gripped two exposed wires, their frayed ends crackling with dangerous energy. "If I'm not there in five minutes, leave without me!"

B.E.N.'s optics dilated with panic.

"I am not leaving my buddy Jimmy!" The robot lunged forward, his metal fingers clamping around Jim's ankle in a vice-like grip.

Jim emerged from under the console, fixing B.E.N. with a glare so sharp it could have cut steel. The live wires in his hands hissed as he brought them dangerously close together, the air between them ionizing with the promise of a catastrophic short-circuit.

"Unless he looks at me like that..." B.E.N.'s voice modulator squeaked with realization. His grip slackened. "Bye, Jim!"

The robot backpedaled so fast his joints screeched in protest, nearly tripping over his own feet as he scrambled across the deck. With one final, frantic wave, B.E.N. launched himself off the ship's rail—his gangly limbs pinwheeling through the air before he vanished through the shimmering portal.

The air reeked of ozone and scorched metal as Jim's bloodstained fingers danced across the control panel. Adrenaline burned through his veins like rocket fuel, temporarily numbing the agony radiating through his entire being—though the warm, sticky sensation soaking through his shirt told him Delbert's stitches had failed spectacularly. He wiped his crimson palm on his thigh, leaving a gruesome smear across the fabric before returning to the ancient wiring with renewed desperation.

The ship shuddered violently as the engines coughed to life, the sound building from a sickly wheeze to a thunderous roar that vibrated through Jim's bones.

"YES!" he bellowed, his voice raw with triumph as he punched the air. Morph erupted into a frenzy of delighted shapes, his cackles nearly drowned out by the resurrected engines. "We are so out of here!" Jim grabbed the weathered helm, his muscles straining as he wrenched the ship about.

The celebration died in his throat when a familiar gravelly voice cut through the din.

"Ah, Jimbo!" Silver stood balanced on the gunwale like some grizzled seabird, his mechanical arm catching the eerie glow of the dying planet's core. "Aren't ye the seventh wonder of the universe?"

The pride in his voice made Jim's stomach twist.

In one fluid motion, Jim lunged for a rusted cutlass hanging nearby. The blade trembled violently in his grasp as he leveled it at Silver's midsection.

"Get back!" The words came out in a strangled cry, all the fear and betrayal of the past days shattering his composure.

Silver froze, his single organic eye widening in something that looked suspiciously like... hurt? For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just the two of them—the blade between them, the unspoken questions hanging heavier than the smoke-filled air.

Silver's voice cut through the chaos, raw with something that might have been sincerity.

"Jimbo, listen to me!" His mechanical hand twitched toward Jim, then froze mid-air. "I'm sorry things went the way they did, but if ye just work with me we can both get outah here with our cut of the treasure!"

For a heartbeat, Jim almost believed him—then Silver's gaze dropped, his organic eye widening in alarm. Jim followed his stare downward.

Drip. Drip.

Scarlet splattered the deck between his boots, each drop spreading like tiny, accusing flowers. His stomach was a ruin of fire and torn flesh, the pain a living thing gnawing at his insides.

"Lad, ye’re bleeding again," Silver said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He took a careful step forward, hands raised. "Give me control of the ship, so I can get ye somewhere safe!"

The words hit like a slap. Safe. As if Silver hadn't been the one to put him in danger in the first place.

"Stop pretending like I mean something to you!" Jim screamed. Hot, furious tears pricked the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over.

The universe answered with violence.

A blast of energy rocked the ship, throwing them both overboard. Jim's world became a nightmare of momentum and searing pain as he slammed onto a tilting platform. Metal screamed beneath them, the platform listing dangerously over a chasm of molten gold.

No time to think.

Jim kicked off with the last of his strength, his body arcing through the scorching air. For one terrifying second, he was weightless—then impact. His fingers found purchase on the opposite ledge, his nails tearing as he scrambled for grip.

And then—agony.

A sickening rip tore through his abdomen, the stitches surrendering completely. White-hot fire lanced up his spine as fresh blood soaked through his shirt. His vision blurred at the edges, but he clung on, teeth gritted against the scream building in his throat.

Somewhere across the chasm, Silver shouted his name.

"Reach for me, lad!"

Silver's voice cut through the roaring heat, desperate and raw. Jim twisted his head—just enough to see the cyborg dangling from the ship's edge, his mechanical arm locked in a death-grip on the railing while his organic hand stretched toward him, fingers splayed wide. The distance between them stretched like a cruel joke. Three feet. Maybe four. It might as well have been a mile.

"I-I can't!" Jim's throat tore around the words.

Then—movement.

The handhold beneath his fingers gave a mechanical hiss and retracted into the wall. Jim's stomach lurched as he dropped, his nails screeching against the metal surface in a shower of sparks. His left hand caught another protrusion—just barely—wrenching his shoulder with a pop that sent white-hot agony down his arm.

His palms were slick with sweat and blood. His muscles trembled, threatening to give out at any second. And then—that terrible hiss again. The second handhold was retracting, millimeter by inexorable millimeter.

The pit yawned below him, a swirling maelstrom of molten gold and white-hot fury. The heat blistered his back, his clothes smoking. For one terrifying, seductive moment, the thought flickered through his mind: Let go. A quick end. No more pain. No more suffering.

Then—

Sarah Hawkins' face swam behind his eyelids.

Her laugh when he'd brought her that stupid shell from the docks. The way her hands—rough from scrubbing floors—had cradled his face after the court hearing. "You're my boy," she'd whispered, like it was the most sacred truth in the universe.

The Benbow's creaky sign. Delbert's ridiculous mannerisms. The ugly, wonderful rock they called home.

A sob ripped from Jim's chest.

I want to go home. I want my mom.

His head snapped up. Silver still hung there, arm outstretched, his face a mask of stubborn, impossible hope. Too far. Always too far.

But Jim Hawkins had spent a lifetime crossing impossible distances.

He pushed.

The wall shuddered under his boots as he launched himself upward, muscles screaming in protest. His fingers stretched—too short, too weak, not enough—

Then—contact.

Silver's organic hand clamped around his wrist like a manacle, the calluses rough against Jim's skin. For one terrifying heartbeat, they hung suspended—Jim's body dangling over the molten abyss, Silver's mechanical arm whining under the strain as it clamped down on the platform. Then, with a grunt of effort, Silver yanked.

Jim crashed onto the platform, his ribs protesting as Silver hauled him to safety. He barely had time to register the solid metal beneath him before the explosion hit.

Flint's ship—their ship—split apart like kindling, the blast wave sending a cascade of gold and jewels tumbling into the inferno below. The coins melted midair, becoming liquid fire as they fell. Jim watched, wide-eyed, as Silver's lifelong dream disintegrated before them.

The cyborg had let it go.

For him.

Before Jim could process the enormity of that sacrifice, Silver's arms enveloped him—crushing but careful, avoiding pressure on his wounds. The man smelled of sweat and gunpowder and salt, his heartbeat a frantic drum against Jim's cheek.

“I weren’t pretending, Jim,” said Silver. “Ye do mean something to me.”

The dam broke.

Tears spilled from Jim’s eyes, his arms locking around Silver's neck with desperate strength. For one fragile moment, the collapsing world faded away—there was only this: the solid weight of Silver's embrace, the unshakable grip keeping him anchored.

Then—

BANG!

The shockwave sent them stumbling. Silver didn't hesitate—he scooped Jim up like he weighed nothing, settling him against his shoulder with practiced ease. Jim clung to his collar, his knuckles bleaching white as the portal's light swallowed them whole.

Consciousness flickered, but Jim held on—to Silver, to life, to the fragile, terrifying hope that maybe—maybe—this time, someone would stay.

B.E.N.'s voice cut through the chaos like a plasma torch, his metallic tones sharp with urgency.

"Hurry on board!" The Legacy hovered precariously close, her engines whining under the strain as she bucked against the planet's dying tremors. "We've got exactly two minutes and thirty-four seconds till planet's destruction!"

Silver didn't hesitate. His arms—one flesh, one machine—tightened around Jim like living restraints before he launched them both over the railing. They hit the deck with a bone-jarring thud, and Jim could hear Amelia shouting orders at Delbert, who sounded like he was nearing a breaking point. The ship jerked sideways as Delbert clumsily handled the wheel, and Jim found himself praying to some higher deity that the canid wouldn’t get them all killed.

Then—warmth. Silver's grip shifted, his massive frame moving with surprising gentleness as he lowered Jim against the gunwale. The cyborg's body became a living shield, his broad shoulders blocking the hail of fiery debris raining from the crumbling sky. Morph's panicked chirps sounded distant, muffled by the ringing in Jim's ears.

Blinking through the haze, Jim forced his eyes open. Silver's face swam in his vision—two blurry images that refused to coalesce. His tongue felt thick, unwieldy, but the question burned too bright to ignore.

“Y-you gave it all up?” he asked.

“Ah!” Silver waved his mechanical hand, the gesture almost careless if not for the way his organic fingers trembled. “It was only a lifelong obsession. I’ll get over it.”

Jim's gaze drifted downward. The front of Silver's shirt was a canvas of crimson—his crimson—the fabric soaked through with dark, spreading stains. A fresh wave of horror rolled through him.

“M’sorry…”

Silver leaned closer, his brow furrowing. “What’s that, Jimbo?”

“I got blood all over you,” Jim mumbled, the words slurring together like a drunkard's confession.

The cyborg's expression softened.

"Don't worry about that, lad." His hands—usually so sure, so strong—were uncharacteristically careful as they prepared to examine Jim's wounds. "Now let me take a look at ye."

Silver had just begun to tug Jim’s shirt from his pants when the ship convulsed violently as a flaming chunk of planetary debris slammed into the hull. Wood splintered with a deafening crack as the mizzen mast sheared off, crashing onto the deck in a shower of sparks and splinters. The impact sent both of them skidding across the tilting deck, Silver's mechanical arm shooting out to anchor them before they could slide overboard.

"Mizzen sail demobilized, Captain!" B.E.N.'s voice crackled with static as he emerged from a cloud of smoke, his optics flickering erratically. "Thrusters at only thirty percent of capacity!"

Delbert's hands trembled on the wheel, his fur matted with sweat and soot.

"Thirty percent!" he wailed, his voice cracking with panic. "That means we're... we'll never clear the planet's explosion in time!"

Something electric coursed through Jim's veins—part adrenaline, part sheer stubborn will. Silver barely had time to react before Jim was moving, launching himself upright with a pained grunt. The world tilted dangerously as he staggered to the rail, his bloodied fingers digging into the wood as he stared back at the collapsing portal. The planet's core pulsed ominously, its emerald light turned hot red as the explosion built.

His legs shook like a newborn fawn's, but Jim forced himself to turn, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps as he scanned the devastated deck. There—amid the wreckage—a shattered cannon and a twisted length of sheet metal glinted in the apocalyptic glow.

"We gotta turn around!" The words tore from Jim's raw throat as he dropped to all fours, his injured leg dragging uselessly behind him. Every movement sent fresh waves of agony through his abdomen, the world blurring at the edges with each pained breath. But the cannon—that damned cannon—was all that mattered now. He crawled forward, his palms scraping against splintered wood, his blood leaving dark smears in his wake. Pain could wait. Survival couldn't.

Amelia's usually composed features fractured as her eyes widened in disbelief.

"What?!" The word came out sharper than a cutlass blade, her aristocratic composure cracking to reveal raw, unvarnished fear beneath.

Jim ignored the way his vision swam as he pointed frantically toward the collapsing planet.

"There's a portal back there!" Blood dripped from somewhere as he spoke, splattering on the deck. "It can get us out of here!"

Silver's mechanical eye whirred as it focused on Jim, the cyborg's expression caught between awe and horror. He moved like a man in a dream, leaning over the rail to stare at the swirling vortex of fire where the portal remained open. Doppler's whimper of protest was nearly drowned out by the planet's death throes, but Jim was already moving—crawling across the splintered deck like a wounded animal, dragging the cannon and twisted metal behind him.

"I'm gonna open a different door!" Jim's voice was hoarse with pain and determination. His fingers fumbled with the frayed rope, the fibers cutting into his already bloodied palms. "It's our only chance!"

"Jim, that is insane!" Delbert's voice cracked as he clutched the wheel, his fur standing on end. "I can't let you risk your life like that!"

But Jim was beyond listening. Silver moved like lightning, his mechanical fingers sparking as he welded the makeshift components together. The metal glowed orange under his touch, the stench of molten steel mixing with the acrid smoke.

"Jimbo!" Silver's organic hand gripped Jim's shoulder hard enough to bruise. "Listen, lad! Ye don't have to do this!"

“One minute, twenty-nine seconds till planet’s destruction!” B.E.N.’s voice rose in volume as panic set in.

“It’s our only shot!” Jim shouted. “If I don’t try, we’ll all die!”

All eyes turned to Amelia. The captain stood rigid, her jaw clenched so tight the muscles stood out like cables. For one endless second, the only sounds were the ship's groaning timbers and the planet's death rattle. Then—

"Turn this ship around, Doctor!" Her voice cut through the fire like a cannon shot. "Head straight for the portal!"

Delbert's whimper was barely audible as his paws tightened on the wheel.

"Aye... Captain." The words trembled, but his grip was iron as he wrenched the ship into a screaming turn, the hull protesting with a sound like tearing metal.

Silver's mechanical arm whined under the weight as he and Jim lifted the jagged metal contraption onto the gunwale. Jim hauled himself up after it, his boots scraping against the rough surface as he positioned himself. His injured leg—his dominant leg, the one that had carried him through countless gales back on Montressor—trembled violently beneath him. He crouched low, fingers digging into the metal's edge until his knuckles turned white. Every heartbeat sent fresh pulses of pain radiating from his wounds, his blood pounding in his ears like the wind that howled through Montressor’s canyons.

“Okay,” Jim breathed. He forced his gaze upward, locking onto the swirling portal ahead. “No matter what happens, keep the ship heading straight for that portal!”

“FIFTY-EIGHT SECONDS!” B.E.N. screamed.

Silver's hand found Jim's shoulder—warm, solid, trembling slightly.

"Ye got this, Jimbo." The usual bravado in his voice had crumbled, leaving something raw and vulnerable beneath.

Their eyes met. A thousand words hung unspoken between them—apologies, regrets, gratitude. But time had run out. Jim clenched his jaw until his teeth ached, then kicked off with every ounce of strength he had left.

The world fell away beneath him.

Wind roared in his ears as he soared through the maelstrom, dodging flaming debris and rivers of molten gold. The heat seared his skin, the acrid smoke burning his lungs with each ragged breath. His makeshift board shuddered beneath him, threatening to buckle at any moment.

But for the first time since they'd entered this nightmare, Jim felt it—that perfect, fleeting moment of weightlessness he'd always chased on his solar surfer. The rush of pure freedom, just before the drop.

If this was the end, he'd make it mean something.

He'd make it fly.

Notes:

Last chapter will be up sometime next Sunday or *possibly* Monday. Bear with me, I am STRUGGLING with the last few lines of the final scene. It will be up next week though! Then I have two sequels in the works!

Chapter 4: Was It Worth It?

Notes:

It's a damn miracle I had the energy to post today, because I've been battling COVID all week! This is my second time getting it since 2020. I'm vaccinated/boosted this time, so it's not as bad as the first time, but still scary because my first time with it left me permanently disabled.
Get vaccinated, y'all!

Jim's internal countdown pulsed in sync with his racing heart as he launched into the chaos. Ten... nine... The numbers burned through his mind, each digit a lifeline against the roaring inferno surrounding him. The molten core beneath him churned like a living beast, its heat licking at the soles of his boots, threatening to drag him into its golden maw.

Eight... seven...

His body moved on pure instinct, hips twisting sharply as he banked around a spinning column of superheated metal. The surfer shuddered violently beneath him, its jagged edges biting into his palms as he fought for control. His left leg—already numb from the wound—screamed in protest with every adjustment, the muscle fibers tearing further with each desperate maneuver.

Six... five...

The portal loomed ahead, its emerald light warping through the heat haze. Jim's vision tunneled, the edges darkening as his leg gave its final warning—a sickening wave of nothingness creeping up his thigh. He wouldn't last much longer.

Four...

Disaster struck.

The surfer's nose caught on a rising slab of debris with a gut-wrenching screech. Time dilated as the world flipped upside down, his body arcing through the air in horrifying slow motion. The holographic controls spun beneath him, their glow painting his sweat-slicked face in eerie light. Every wound in his body shrieked as he stretched—fingers splayed, tendons standing out like cables—toward that impossible crescent at the hologram's heart.

Three... two... one...

Silence.

For one soul-crushing heartbeat, nothing happened. The portal yawned before them, its fiery maw unchanged. Jim's stomach dropped—he'd failed. They'd all-

Then—

The triangle collapsed in on itself with a thunderous crack, reforming in an instant. The new doorway shimmered like salvation just as the shockwave hit.

Fire and force slammed into Jim's back, the impact crushing the air from his lungs. His forehead cracked against the surfer with a sickening whack, stars exploding behind his eyelids. His fingers closed around the metal's edge on pure instinct, the razor-sharp steel slicing deep into his palms. Blood welled instantly, slick and hot between his fingers as he was sent spinning through the maelstrom.

Debris became a meteor shower around him—chunks of molten metal whistling past his ears, close enough that he felt their blistering heat sear across his back. The stench of burning hair and fabric filled his nose as he tumbled end over end, clinging to his makeshift board like it was the only solid thing left in the universe.

The world dissolved into silence—a thick, muffled quiet, broken only by the persistent bzzzt of something broken inside his skull. Jim floated, weightless, his fingers still locked in a death grip around the metal’s edge. His hands had gone numb, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the blood loss.

Something warm and thick slid down his forehead—slow, warm—before pooling in the hollow of his eyelid. He tried to blink, but his lashes stuck together.

The air here was different—thin, biting, scraping down his throat like shards of glass with every shallow breath. His lungs burned, each inhale a battle against his own failing body.

Voices. Distant, warped, as if heard through water. They called his name, frantic, but his tongue lay heavy in his mouth, useless. He couldn’t even lift his head.

Then, there was warmth.

Massive hands, calloused and comforting, pried his frozen fingers loose one by one. The metal slipped away, and suddenly he was weightless again, cradled against something solid. A chest. A heartbeat. The rumble of a voice vibrated against his cheek, rough with panic. Silver’s scent—salt and gunpowder and sweat—filled his nose. The arms around him tightened, shaking him gently, but the darkness at the edges of his vision was spreading, inky and inviting.

“Come on, Jim! Open yer eyes!”

Every muscle in Jim's body protested as he dragged his eyelids open, the effort leaving him trembling. Silver's face swam into view above him—those familiar features twisted with fear, the deep lines around his eyes more pronounced than Jim had ever seen them. But when their gazes met, Silver's expression cracked into a smile so relieved it made Jim's chest ache.

"Oh, lad!" Silver's voice was rough, his organic eye glistening with unshed tears. One fat droplet broke free, tracing a path through the soot on his cheek. "Stay with me, we're gonna get ye help."

Jim's vision blurred as he turned his head, taking in the rocking motion of the longboat beneath them. The Legacy floated in the distance, her hull scorched but intact. He must have been thrown clear—far enough that Silver had to brave the debris field to reach him.

He tried to speak, but his throat seized, the words dissolving into a fit of coughing that sent white-hot pain radiating through his ribs. Silver's hand came to rest on his chest.

"Shhh," the cyborg hushed him, firing up the skiff's engine with his other hand.

The sudden lurch of movement sent a gust of frigid air over Jim's skin, raising goosebumps along his arms. He shuddered violently, instinctively curling toward Silver's radiating warmth. The cyborg adjusted his grip, tucking Jim closer against his side without breaking their course.

It took three tries before Jim could force his voice to work.

"I-is everyone okay?" The words came out thin, brittle—barely audible over the engine's hum.

“Yes, Jim,” Silver replied. “Doc, Captain Amelia, Morph, and that robot ye found. We’re all okay. Ye’re our main concern right now.”

Jim swallowed against the dryness in his throat. "What about your crew?"

A shadow passed over Silver's face. "They..." His jaw worked silently for a moment. "Me crew didn't make it out."

The air left Jim's lungs in a rush. Silver's arm tightened around him, the pressure just shy of painful.

"We're gonna get ye to a hospital, lad," he said, his voice dropping into something low. "Just hang in there."

The stars blurred overhead as the skiff surged forward, but Jim couldn't tell if it was from the speed or the tears burning his eyes.

A cold, sickening realization slithered through Jim’s veins. He tried to speak, but his throat clenched like a fist, trapping the words inside. Silver maneuvered the skiff alongside the Legacy, his movements sharp with urgency as he hauled them both onto the deck. Jim’s body was betraying him—his limbs heavy as lead, his fingers twitching uselessly at his sides. Even breathing was a struggle now, each inhale shallower than the last. Jim twisted his arm and flexed his fingers, but he couldn’t manage anything more than that. He was shutting down.

Captain Amelia’s voice cut through the haze like a blade.

“B.E.N., contact Montressor Spaceport! We need medics ready at the gangway as soon as we land!”

“Aye, Captain!”

The world tilted as Jim was lowered onto a rough-woven blanket. The frigid air rushed over his skin like a thousand needles, stealing what little warmth he had left. A whimper escaped him—weak, involuntary—before he could bite it back. Too cold. Too cold.

Amelia’s fingers pressed against his throat, her touch clinical but firm. Jim could feel his own heartbeat—a frantic, stuttering thing—hammering against her fingertips. His body convulsed with another violent shiver, and Amelia’s hands moved swiftly, folding the blanket around his shoulders with military precision.

“We need to keep his core warm.”

Silver’s hands joined hers, tucking the edges tighter, tighter, until Jim’s arms were pinned to his sides. The pressure should have been comforting. It wasn’t. His eyes darted between them, panic clawing up his chest as Amelia’s next words landed like a sentencing.

“Mr. Silver, as soon as B.E.N. has called for the medics, I will have him contact the authorities.” Her voice was ice. “You will be arrested immediately after Mr. Hawkins is taken to the hospital, are we clear?”

Silver’s organic hand cradled Jim’s head, his fingers trembling slightly as they brushed through his sweat-damp hair. For a heartbeat, the cyborg simply bowed his head, his breath shuddering.

“Yes, Captain.”

“NO!”

The scream tore from Jim’s raw throat with a force that shocked even him. He thrashed against the blanket, his arms breaking free as he shoved Silver away with what little strength he had left.

“Silver, you need to run!” His voice cracked with desperation. “They’ll kill you!”

Silver's hands clamped around Jim's wrists like iron manacles, pinning him to the deck with terrifying ease. Jim thrashed violently, his good leg kicking out with such force that Amelia and Delbert had to throw their weight onto him as well. The blanket tangled around his limbs as he writhed, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps.

"Settle down, Jim," Silver murmured, his voice thick with something that might have been grief. His organic hand cradled the back of Jim's head, fingers tangling in sweat-soaked hair. "It's gonna be alright."

"No, it's not!" Jim's scream tore through the air, raw and desperate. His nails dug into Silver's forearms, drawing thin lines of blood. "Silver, please! They'll execute you!"

A shudder ran through the cyborg's frame.

"I know," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. His mechanical eye whirred softly, its usual precision replaced by something unsteady. "I'm afraid too, lad. But the thought of leaving ye… I-I can't. I need to see to it that ye pull through. I don't think I could stand not knowing." His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. "If I gotta face the consequences for what I did, then so be it."

"I don't want you to die!"

The words shattered between them, sharp as broken glass. Jim's vision blurred, hot tears spilling over as Silver's face swam above him. The cyborg's voice trembled when he spoke again.

"Let's worry about ye first, Jimbo."

"Mr. Hawki—James—Jim—" Amelia's usual crisp cadence faltered as she used his preferred name. Her fingers, pressed to his pulse point, tightened slightly around his wrist. "Please, take deep breaths and calm down."

"Listen to your captain, Jim!" Delbert's voice cracked with barely restrained panic, his spectacles askew from the struggle to maintain his grip.

Jim's wild gaze snapped to Amelia. "Captain!" His voice was raw, stripped bare. "Please don't let them kill Silver! He's not a bad person!"

Amelia's mouth tightened. "Jim, I am afraid I do not have a choice—"

"Yes, you do!" The realization hit Jim like a lightning strike. He stilled suddenly, his chest heaving. "He passed his background check, didn't he? They don't know about him, or they would've arrested him before! He's just the cook to them!" His voice rose, frantic with hope. "You don't have to turn him in! He's just the cook!"

Silver's thumb brushed across Jim's cheekbone, wiping away tears.

"Shhh… Breathe, pup. Breathe,” he soothed, just as Jim's lungs remembered their purpose and dragged in a shuddering gasp.

Amelia fell silent. Her piercing gaze flicked between them, her expression as inscrutable as ever. But Jim searched her face—the slight tightening around her eyes, the barely-there twitch of her jaw—and saw it. The hesitation. The calculation.

The wheels turning.

"Medics arriving at the port now, Captain!" B.E.N.'s voice pierced through the haze, tinny and distant like a bad transmission.

Jim felt Delbert's shaking paws fumble at his belt buckle, the canid's nails catching on the leather with frantic, uncoordinated tugs. A muttered curse—then cold air hit his exposed thigh as the fabric peeled away. Something wet clung against his skin, but Jim couldn't tell if it was antiseptic or blood. He lifted his head with monumental effort, his neck muscles trembling—

—and saw his leg.

Grey.

The color of dead fish bellies, of storm clouds before a hurricane. His skin had taken on a waxy, lifeless sheen, the wound beneath crusted black at the edges but still weeping fresh crimson.

"Easy, Jimbo." Silver's palm cradled the back of his skull, gently guiding his head back down. The cyborg's touch was warm, but Jim's body had gone beyond shivering—his nerves flickering in and out like a dying lightbulb.

A wave of dizziness crashed over him. The world tilted violently, then righted itself in fractured pieces: Silver's face hovering above him, the only solid thing in a sea of smeared colors and shapeless noise. The Legacy's engines thrummed beneath them, their vibrations traveling up through the deck and into Jim's chest—a weak, irregular counterpoint to his faltering heartbeat.

His eyelids sagged. So heavy. Silver's features blurred at the edges, his scarred nose and stubbled jaw melting into the background. Jim fought to keep them open, his lashes fluttering like wounded birds.

In. Out.

His breaths were ragged things, scraping against his ribs with each shallow gasp. The sounds around him morphed—voices twisting into nonsense, colors bleeding together. Then, without warning, the world changed.

Cold, sterile light stabbed his vision. Strange hands grabbed at him, voices barking orders that might as well have been in another language. Something plastic and suffocating clamped over his mouth and nose—

—then nothing—

—then more blinding light—

—then—

Silence.

A different kind of darkness now. Thick. Medicated. The sharp scent of antiseptic burned his nostrils, undercut by something coppery and stale. A steady, mechanical beep... beep... beep pulsed from his left, each tone a lifeline tethering him to consciousness.

Movement.

A shadow loomed at the edge of the bed—tall, featureless, terrifying. Jim's breath hitched, a weak sound of panic escaping his cracked lips.

Then—fingers in his hair. Gentle. Familiar.

"Shh... It's okay, baby, it's just me."

The shadow resolved into his mother’s face—her familiar features streaked with tears, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. The setting sun blazed behind her, turning the loose strands of her hair into a golden halo, her silhouette edged in fire. She smiled, but it trembled at the corners, fragile as glass.

Jim tried to lift his arms, to reach for her, but his muscles had turned to water. His fingers twitched uselessly against the stiff sheets that enveloped his entire body. He tried to speak, but something foreign blocked his mouth, and his throat burned with every aborted attempt. All that escaped was a whimper, thin and broken, like the cry of a wounded animal.

His eyelids weighed a thousand pounds. He fought to keep them open, blinking rapidly as tears blurred his vision. His mother’s hand closed around his, her skin warm and rough from years of work, her grip just tight enough to ground him.

“We’re all here. We’re not going anywhere.”

More figures emerged from the glare of the sunset—silhouettes haloed in gold, their edges soft and glowing. Another hand enveloped his right one, massive and calloused, swallowing his fingers whole. The warmth of it seeped into his bones, familiar and safe.

Then—recognition.

His gaze dragged to the right, and his breath stuttered.

Silver.

The cyborg shouldn’t be here. Couldn’t be here. Panic flared in Jim’s chest, sharp and sudden. The heart monitor to his left erupted into a frantic beep-beep-beep, matching the wild rhythm of his pulse.

One of the other shadows—Delbert, his mind supplied—spoke in a hushed, urgent tone.

“He’s in pain. I’ll get the nurse.”

Footsteps. Voices. The room swelled with noise, a cacophony of clipped orders and rustling fabric. Then—

A creeping numbness, starting in his fingertips, crawling up his arms like icy water rising. A heavy warmth followed, pressing down on him, smothering the fear, the pain, the voices. The light dimmed. The world softened at the edges.

Soon, Jim felt nothing.

---

The setting sun glowed through the clouds like a gash across the brimstone-red sky. The air reeked of sweat and iron, thick enough to choke on. Jim stood paralyzed in the seething crowd, their bodies pressing against him like a living vise. Shoulder blades dug into his ribs. Hot breath fogged the back of his neck. The roar of the mob vibrated through his bones—a bestial hunger for spectacle.

The gallows gates shrieked open, their rusted hinges screaming. A procession of shadows emerged, their chains scraping against cobblestones with a sound like grinding teeth. Each footstep kicked up puffs of ash that swirled in the hellish light.

Captain Amelia stood rigid at the scaffold's base, her uniform unnaturally crisp against the decay. The setting sun turned her orange hair to molten copper while her face remained carved from ice. Jim's vision tunneled—her polished boots, her white-knuckled fists, the slight tremor in her jawline the only betrayal of emotion.

Jim couldn’t bear to look at her. It wasn’t her fault. He knew the sentence for piracy was death. He knew that Captain Amelia wouldn’t jeopardize her career and reputation in order to protect a pirate. It would be treason, and such an act would have endangered her own life as well. Still, Jim couldn’t help but resent her. Most of all, he didn’t understand why he was being forced to watch this.

The first prisoners reached the platform. Their bare feet left smears of something dark on the weathered wood. Jim's gaze traveled upward against his will—past tattered breeches, past trembling hands—and locked onto the executioner's skeletal grin.

Flint's corpse leaned against the lever, his six empty eye sockets somehow fixed on Jim alone. The dead captain's jaw unhinged with a wet crack, releasing a cloud of moths that swarmed toward the nooses.

Suddenly Delbert's paws were on Jim's face, his thumbs wiping under his eyes.

"Jim, look at me." The doctor's voice wavered like a candle in wind. His tone was gentle, as if calming a small child. "Can you understand me?"

Jim opened and shut his mouth several times, but his voice betrayed him. It was as if he’d forgotten how to talk. He wanted his mom. He tried to call for her, but he could barely sound out the first letters.

“Mm.. ma…”

Thankfully Delbert understood, and he smiled softly at Jim.

“Your mum just stepped out for some air,” said Delbert, “she’ll be back at any second.”

A trumpet blast shattered the moment. The royal officer's voice cut like a scalpel, reciting sentences in clipped, indifferent tones. The words blurred together—treason, piracy, queen's justice—until they became meaningless noise.

No right to trial, no right to legal counsel… Jim couldn’t listen anymore. He turned his gaze downward as the final orders were carried out.

Wood groaned. Rope fibers stretched.

Six necks snapped in perfect unison.

The sound was obscenely crisp—like sticks breaking under a boot. Jim's stomach lurched as the bodies swayed in macabre rhythm, their swollen tongues protruding like purple slugs. When the cart came for them, their limp forms landed with wet thuds, limbs tangling as they were wheeled away like garbage.

The officer shouted more orders, and the sound of rattling chains filled the courtyard once more. Jim looked down again and covered his eyes, afraid to look at the gallows for he knew what he would see if he did.

Then the jeering crowd faded like white noise, and the courtyard drained empty like a wound.

“It’s gonna be okay, Jimbo.”

Silver stood on the scaffold, the noose already biting into his weathered neck. His mechanical eye whirred softly, its amber glow painting Flint's grinning skull in eerie light. The dead captain's finger bones tapped a jaunty rhythm against the lever.

Jim's scream died before it reached his lips. His throat had been stuffed with cotton. His limbs had been cast in iron.

The trapdoor exploded open with a sound like cannon fire.

Silver dropped.

His neck broke with a crunch that echoed across the square. His body jerked once—twice—then stilled. The light in his mechanical eye dimmed gradually, its glow receding like tidewater until only a pinprick remained...

...then winked out.

And just like that, Silver—the closest thing to a father Jim had ever known—was dead.

Jim screamed and lunged forward in an explosion of agony and grief, but he was caught by a slim pair of arms that wrapped tightly around his frame. He thrashed weakly, his limbs sluggish and uncoordinated, his fists barely making contact before collapsing against his mother's chest.

"It's okay, Jim." Sarah's voice cut through the nightmare's remnants, soft and soothing. Her fingers carded through his sweat-drenched hair, her skin cool against his fevered brow. "Mama's got you, you're going to be okay."

Jim opened his eyes just enough to see that he was back in that unfamiliar room. The smell of sickness and suffering permeated the air. He turned his head and buried his face into his mother’s neck. His body felt like it was on fire, but Sarah’s skin felt cool on his. She rocked him back and forth, humming softly. Then Jim felt someone’s palm touch his forehead.

“He’s burning up,” he heard Delbert’s voice say. He said something else Jim couldn’t understand and then, “…another dose.”

Amelia spoke next, “B.E.N. fetch the nurse.”

A very large hand spanned Jim’s lower back, and a deep voice murmured, “Let’s get him settled back.”

Hands guided him down until the sheets swallowed him whole. His body went limp, every ounce of fight drained away. Breathing was a chore, each inhale scraping like sandpaper through his ribs.

Footsteps—quick, urgent—pounded against the tile. A stranger's voice barked orders, and suddenly Sarah's comforting weight was gone, replaced by clinical hands and sterile commands. Cold fingers pried at his bandages. Something sharp pricked his arm.

Then—nothing.

The numbness spread like ink in water, swallowing the pain, the fear, the lingering images of gallows and dead men's grins. The world faded to static, and Jim let it take him.

Time stretched and blurred like syrup. His mother’s presence was the only constant—her voice a soft murmur against the sterile silence, her fingers carding through his sweat-damp hair, her lap a steady cradle for his aching head. She fed him, held him, and sang to him, her voice wavering slightly on the high notes, the same lullabies she’d sung when he was small.

But peace was fragile.

It shattered without warning—flashes of agony, of hands holding him down, of needles piercing his skin, of voices barking orders he couldn’t comprehend. Then, mercifully, the void would reclaim him, swallowing the pain whole until all that remained was the quiet and his mother’s hands.

There was movement and warmth swathed his entire body. Through the haze of sedation, Jim slowly began to register that his environment had changed. A subtle vibration from underneath signaled to him that he was being transported. He tried to open his groggy eyes, but exhaustion weighted them back down.

Then the smells changed into something that felt more familiar to him, and he welcomed the change to his surroundings when his body landed on a surface softer than anything he’d felt in ages.

The curtains billowed like sails, their shadows dancing across his eyelids—

—and suddenly, he was back on the Legacy.

His fingers screamed in protest as they clenched around the tattered flag, his knuckles bleaching white. The Etherium yawned above him, endless and hungry, its inky depths swallowing the stars whole. Pain radiated from every nerve, but it was the wound on his stomach that seized his attention—a gaping maw, its edges ragged and weeping. His fingers brushed against something slick and pulsing—

—his own insides, spilling free in glistening ropes, drifting toward the void like macabre offerings.

A chuckle, low and rasping, crawled up his spine.

Scroop clung to the crow’s nest, his carapace gleaming in the dying light. One claw extended, the serrated edge catching the starlight—

Snap.

The rope gave way.

“Stop thrashing around, lad,” said a familiar voice, “gonna hurt yerself.”

The Legacy dissolved.

Silver knelt in the dirt, his back straight, his face eerily calm as the firing squad leveled their rifles.

No. No. NO.

Jim tried to run, but his limbs were leaden, held down by invisible weights. His scream tore through the square—"SILVER!"—raw and desperate, but the guns fired anyway, the reports cracking like thunder.

Then—warmth.

Strong arms encircled him, hauling him against a broad chest. He fought weakly, but the grip was unyielding, pinning his limbs until his struggles ceased.

"I’m right here, pup. I’m not going anywhere."

Jim could feel his body being rocked back and forth. The person holding him kissed his hairline and nuzzled the top of his head. They began to hum a tune—some old shanty—their warm voice rumbling through their chest and vibrating against Jim’s head.

Slowly, the nightmares loosened their grip.

Slowly, he let go.

---

He felt unnaturally tired, his limbs heavy as lead, every muscle throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. Those were Jim’s first thoughts as he reluctantly drifted toward consciousness, the fog of sleep clinging stubbornly to his mind. The bed beneath him was soft, the covers drawn snugly up to his chest and tucked around his body with an almost stifling precision. He was lying flat on his back—something that immediately struck him as wrong. He always slept curled on his side, limbs tucked close, so the unfamiliar position sent a ripple of unease through him. He dragged both hands up to rub his eyes, his fingers brushing against something rough and textured—a bandage, he realized, plastered over part of his right eyebrow. The fabric of his shirt—no, not his shirt—was oversized, the sleeves swallowing his wrists, the collar loose and unfamiliar against his skin. Then something cold and damp pressed against his cheek, sending a shiver down his spine. His eyelids fluttered open slightly at the sensation.

Slowly, the world sharpened into focus. The room was bathed in shadows, the dim glow of an oil lamp casting flickering amber light across the space, just enough to outline shapes and textures. To his left, towering bookshelves lined the walls, their spines worn and gilded titles catching the faint light. Midnight blue wallpaper stretched between them, adorned with delicate gold constellations that shimmered faintly, as if whispering secrets of distant stars. A small fireplace sat dormant beside an ornate writing desk, its surface cluttered with quills and parchment. The air carried the faint scent of old books, polished wood, and the lingering smokiness of recently extinguished embers. Jim recognized this place—one of the guest rooms at Doppler’s estate—but why was he here?

Outside the window, the night was impenetrable, an inky void that offered no hint of time. It could have been the deepest hour of midnight or the fragile moments before dawn—he couldn’t tell. A soft, almost imperceptible noise drew his attention back to the cold, squishy weight beside his face. There, nestled into the pillow like a living lump of molten wax, was Morph, his tiny form rising and falling with each breath. The little blob chirped faintly in his sleep, a sound like the tinkling of distant wind chimes, his body shifting hues between pale pink and dreamy violet. Jim felt a weak smile tug at his lips before he let his eyes drift shut again—until, like a lightning strike, memory surged through him.

The portal. Flint’s Trove. The searing pain, the blood—so much blood—dripping into his eye, the roar of flames, the acrid stench of burning wood and metal. And Silver.

Silver.

Jim’s breath hitched as despair crashed over him like a tidal wave. He pressed his hands over his face, fingers digging into his skin. There was no way the captain would risk her neck to spare Silver’s life. The government didn’t hesitate when it came to pirates. No trials, no mercy. It was very likely that Silver was already—

Another sound cut through the silence—a deep, rumbling snore—and Jim’s head whipped to the side so fast his neck protested. For a heartbeat, he was certain his eyes were deceiving him. But no—there, slumped in a massive armchair beside his bed, was John Silver himself. The cyborg’s chest rose and fell steadily, his mechanical arm glinting dully in the lamplight, his face relaxed in sleep. The sight sent a surge of joy through Jim so fierce it nearly stole his breath.

Jim fought against the suffocating weight of the blankets, his muscles trembling with the effort. Every shift sent sharp jolts of pain radiating from his wounds, his breath coming in ragged gasps between gritted teeth. His vision blurred as hot tears welled up, stubbornly clinging to his lashes before spilling over—whether from frustration, pain, or sheer desperation, he couldn’t tell. With one final, agonizing lurch, he managed to close the distance, his fingers scrabbling weakly at the rough fabric of Silver’s tunic before finally seizing it in a white-knuckled grip. He yanked hard, his entire body screaming in protest.

The cyborg jerked awake with a startled grunt, his mechanical arm whirring faintly as he instinctively braced himself. His good eye blinked rapidly, bleary with sleep, until his gaze finally landed on Jim.

“Jim!”

For a fleeting moment, Silver’s face lit up with pure, unfiltered joy—eyes crinkling, teeth flashing in a wide, relieved grin—but then his expression darkened. His brows knitted together, the lines of his face deepening with concern as he took in Jim’s labored breathing and tear-streaked cheeks.

“Oh no ye don’t.”

Before Jim could protest, Silver’s hands—one warm and calloused, the other cool, unyielding metal—closed firmly around his shoulders. The pressure was unshakable, yet impossibly gentle, guiding him back down into the pillows with the same care one might use to handle something fragile. Morph erupted from the pillow in a flurry of startled pink, zipping frantic circles above Jim’s head with a flurry of high-pitched chirps, his tiny form anxiously flickering between violet and pink.

Silver’s finger—thick and scarred—swung into Jim’s line of sight, wagging like a metronome of disapproval.

“No reaching, bending, twisting, or doing anything that involves yer stomach muscles. Them’s the rules!”

But just as quickly as the sternness came, it melted away. Silver’s weathered face softened, the corners of his eyes creasing with something tender, something paternal. His large hands shifted, one sliding carefully behind Jim’s back, the other cradling the back of his head, lifting him just enough to gather him into an embrace. The hug was tight—not crushing, but solid, like an anchor in a storm. The scent of salt, smoke, and engine grease clung to Silver’s clothes, familiar and grounding. Jim could feel the steady thrum of the cyborg’s heartbeat against his own, a rhythmic reassurance that alive, alive, we’re both alive.

“How’re ye feeling, pup?”

Jim's hands shot up with desperate urgency, fingers twisting into the coarse fabric of Silver's shirt like a drowning man clutching driftwood. His knuckles turned bone-white from the force of his grip, tendons standing out sharply beneath his skin. He clung with every ounce of his weakened strength, terrified that if he loosened his hold for even a moment, the solid warmth beneath his hands might dissolve into smoke and shadow—just another torturous illusion conjured by his exhausted mind.

“H-how long have I-” The words tore from his raw throat like broken glass, his voice fracturing under the weight of emotion. A violent coughing fit seized him immediately after, each convulsive hack sending fresh waves of pain radiating through his battered body.

“Settle down, settle down.” Silver's voice wrapped around him like a warm blanket as the cyborg's hands moved with practiced ease. He rearranged the pillows with gentle precision, his touch feather-light as he guided Jim upright against their support. The blankets rustled softly as Silver smoothed them with careful tucks, the fabric whispering against Jim's skin.

“Ye’ve been loopy and out of it for over a week,” Silver added, “To be honest, I don’t even know what day it is right now! We brought ye home from the hospital just yesterday.”

The glass of water caught the lamplight as Silver brought it to Jim's lips, droplets condensing on its surface like morning dew. Jim felt the solid pressure of Silver's palm cradling the back of his head, tilting him forward just enough to drink. The water was blissfully cool as it trickled down his parched throat, each small sip a balm to his burning airways. Through it all, Jim's gaze remained locked on Silver's face, his eyes burning with the intensity of his focus. He tracked every minute shift in Silver's expression, every crease around his eyes, every movement of his beard as he spoke—as if by sheer force of willpower, he could keep the man from vanishing into the air like morning mist.

Silver's chest rumbled with quiet laughter, the sound warm and rich like honeyed whiskey.

"We actually had to bring ye home a tad earlier than we'd have liked," he admitted, his good eye crinkling at the corner. "Long story short, the press got word of ye, and they caused a big scene at the hospital. Needless to say, ye're a bit of a celebrity now!"

The pride in Silver’s voice was unmistakable, though it couldn't mask the exhaustion lining his face.

The energy Jim had possessed just a moment before seemed to whoosh out of him like a collapsing star—all the fleeting strength he'd mustered evaporated in an instant. His body went slack, the world tilting dangerously until Silver's steadying grip became the only thing keeping him upright. The cyborg's hands pressed firmly against his shoulders, radiating warmth through the thin fabric of his shirt. As his breathing steadied, the metallic taste of fear still lingered on his tongue when he finally found his voice again.

“But what about…” The words caught in his dry throat, each syllable scraping like sandpaper. His fingers twisted nervously in the sheets, the linen growing damp beneath his clammy palms. Giving voice to his darkest dread felt like tempting fate itself. “The captain-”

“Had a change of heart,” Silver interjected softly, his mechanical hand coming up to rub at his tired eye with a quiet whir of gears. When he looked back at Jim, his gaze held something fragile and awestruck. “Lad, I don’t know what ye see in me, but what ye said to the captain… Well, ye saved me life.”

The weight that lifted from Jim's chest was so sudden he nearly gasped. Relief flooded through him like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, warming him from the inside out. His muscles uncoiled one by one, sinking deeper into the nest of pillows as the tension bled from his body. Before he could process it all, a familiar pink blur came streaking toward him—Morph trilling with joy as he pressed his pliant form against Jim's cheek, cool and smooth like polished sea glass.

Jim's hands rose instinctively, cradling the shapeshifter with trembling fingers.

"Missed you too, bud," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion as he scratched gently behind what passed for Morph's ear. The creature melted into his touch, vibrating with contentment, his colors shifting to a soft, glowing pink that reflected in the sheen of unshed tears in Jim's eyes.

“Morph,” Silver's voice was soft, the usual boisterous tones tempered by something tender and careful. He extended a finger for the little shapeshifter to perch on. “Why don’t ye do me a favor and get Jim’s mum down here.”

Morph chirped a tiny ‘Aye-aye, Captain’ and—in a streak of pink—he zipped through the air like a living comet, slipping through the barely-open door with a faint whoosh of displaced air.

“Yer poor mum has been inconsolable since ye got-”

The words died in his throat as he followed Jim's frozen gaze downward. The air in the room grew suddenly thick, every sound amplified—the creak of Silver's mechanical joints, the distant tick of a clock somewhere down the hall, Jim's own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Jim's hands hovered over the covers, trembling like leaves in a storm. His breath came in shallow bursts as some primal part of his mind screamed warnings, begging him not to look, not to confirm what his body already knew. The space beneath the blankets felt... wrong. The weight distribution alien. His left side too light, the mattress pressing up where it shouldn't.

With a jerky movement that sent pain lancing through his still-healing body, Jim finally yanked the covers aside. The sterile white bandages glared up at him, stark against his pale skin. His stomach lurched violently at the sight of the smooth, rounded end where his thigh simply... stopped. The careful wrappings couldn't disguise the abrupt termination of his limb, the way the fabric tapered to nothing less than halfway down what should have been his leg.

A high-pitched ringing filled Jim's ears as his vision tunneled. His fingers twitched toward the bandages before recoiling, as if burned. The room tilted nauseatingly, his remaining leg jerking in a phantom reflex. Some detached part of his mind noted how clinical it looked—no blood, no raw flesh, just neat white gauze hiding the healing wound beneath. That almost made it worse.

Silver's breath hitched audibly beside him, but Jim couldn't tear his eyes away from the absence where part of him should be. His chest constricted painfully, each attempted breath feeling like inhaling shattered glass. The reality of it crashed over him in waves—this wasn't some temporary injury. This was forever.

Silver's hand came to rest on Jim's shoulder. The weight of it was solid, grounding, as his fingers gave a gentle squeeze that spoke volumes.

"I'm sorry, lad," he murmured, his voice rough with emotion. The words hung heavy in the space between them, thick with shared pain and unspoken understanding.

Jim couldn't tear his gaze away from the brutal truth wrapped in white gauze. His vision blurred at the edges as a torrent of thoughts crashed through his mind—memories of running through the streets of town, the feel of solid deck plating beneath his boots, the simple joy of kicking off on his solar surfer without a second thought. A hot pressure built behind his eyes as realization struck: he'd never again feel the cool morning grass between all ten toes, or the satisfying burn in both calves after climbing through the canyons of Montressor. The loss was so vast, so all-encompassing, it threatened to pull him under.

The mattress dipped as Silver settled onto the bed's edge by Jim.

“It’ll be hard for a while, but it gets better as time goes on,” he said, his organic hand never leaving Jim's shoulder. “In a few months, ye’ll get fitted for a prosthetic, and I’ll help ye relearn how to walk. And if ye want a mechanical leg, we can arrange for that. The tech has come a long way. It’s lightyears ahead of what I’ve got!”

Silver grinned and rapped his knuckles against his own peg leg—the hollow tok-tok sound oddly comforting in its familiarity. The corners of Jim's mouth twitched upward despite himself, his answering smile shaky but genuine. The tears clinging to his lashes caught the lamplight, scattering tiny prisms across his cheeks.

A beat of silence passed before Jim swallowed hard, his voice barely above a whisper when he finally spoke.

“So…” He paused, fingers plucking nervously at the blanket's edge. “What exactly is the criteria to be a cyborg?”

Silver's reaction was instantaneous—a thunderclap of joy in the heavy air. His mechanical hand came down on his knee with a metallic clang while his organic one clutched his stomach as he belly laughed, the sound rich and full-bodied, echoing off the bedroom walls like rolling waves. His entire face transformed with mirth, crow's feet deepening around his eyes, his stubbled face bristling with the force of his grin.

"Now, let's try not to lose anymore body parts, shall we!” He managed between chuckles, wiping at his good eye. Then his expression shifted to sudden remembrance. "Oh! I've got something here for ye."

With a grunt, Silver leaned down, his mechanical arm whirring softly as he rummaged through something hidden beside the bed. The clinking of metal on metal sang through the quiet room before he straightened up, presenting his find with a flourish that made his joints creak.

“What’s this?” Jim asked as Silver deposited a heavy bag onto his lap, the fabric coarse against his fingertips, bulging with odd shapes beneath.

“Well, I may have grabbed a few things before we escaped Treasure Planet.” Silver's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, his eyes twinkling.

With trembling hands, Jim peeled back the sack's opening. A gasp caught in his throat as golden light reflected back at him, painting his face in liquid amber. Coins of every size and mint gleamed like captured sunlight, tumbling over each other with soft metallic whispers. Jewels winked from between them—rubies dark as blood, emeralds like frozen forest pools, sapphires holding entire galaxies in their depths. The treasure shifted with a sound like rainfall as Jim's fingers dove in, coming up dripping with wealth beyond imagining.

His vision blurred as he stared at the fortune in his lap—more money than his mother had ever seen in her adult life, more than enough to rebuild the Benbow Inn. The lump in his throat swelled until he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. When he finally dragged his gaze up to meet Silver's, his mouth moved soundlessly, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“To help yer sweet mum rebuild that inn of hers.” Silver's voice was thick with emotion as his flesh hand came up, calloused fingers carding gently through Jim's unruly hair. The touch lingered, warm and steadying. “Ye kept yer promise to her, after all.”

The words "Thank you" escaped Jim's lips in a whisper no louder than the rustle of treasure, carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken gratitudes. In that moment, the bag in his lap felt lighter than air, while his heart swelled heavy with something far more precious than gold.

Jim's gaze drifted downward again, drawn like a magnet to the stark absence beneath the blankets. The neatly bandaged stump still didn't feel real—his mind kept expecting to see his foot twitch, his toes curl, the familiar scars from childhood adventures. A phantom itch teased at his missing calf, maddening and impossible to scratch. He swallowed hard, knowing this shock would return in waves for months, maybe years.

Then the heavy weight of treasure shifted in his lap, coins clinking softly like wind chimes. His fingers traced the rough burlap texture of the sack before lifting his eyes to meet Silver’s—those familiar crinkles at the corners, the proud tilt of his stubbled chin. And in that moment, something warm and golden blossomed in Jim's chest, pushing back against the cold shock of loss until he felt... improbably, impossibly fortunate.

"You give up a few things, chasing a dream..." Jim's voice caught as he swiped at the moisture on his cheeks, his fingers coming away damp. The salt taste of tears touched his lips. "Right?"

Silver's chuckle rumbled deep in his chest, but the sound was thick with unshed tears.

“Do ye think it was worth it, lad?” he asked.

A sudden gasp shattered the moment.

The bedroom door framed Sarah Hawkins like a portrait of maternal anguish. Her nightgown hung slightly askew, the lace collar torn in one place as if clutched at repeatedly. Wild brunette tendrils escaped her braid, catching the lamplight like copper wire. Dark smudges beneath her red-rimmed eyes spoke of endless hours keeping vigil, her normally rosy cheeks gone pale and drawn. Both hands pressed against her mouth, stifling a sob that escaped anyway—a raw, wounded sound that seemed to hang in the air.

Then she moved like a summer storm, rushing to the bedside in a whisper of fabric and the faint scent of her perfume. Her arms encircled Jim with the perfect balance of desperation and care, one hand cradling his head while the other avoided his injuries. Jim melted into the embrace, breathing in the familiar comfort of home—starch from the her laundry, a hint of cinnamon from her baking, the underlying warmth that was simply Mom. Her kisses rained across his forehead, his cheeks, each one a whispered prayer of gratitude, her tears mixing with his where their faces touched.

When she finally leaned back, her sleeve made rough, jerky swipes across her face, the fabric growing damp. But her hands remained steady as they framed Jim's face, thumbs tracing his cheekbones as if memorizing every detail.

"I'm never letting you out of my sight again," she whispered, the laugh that followed sounding more like a sob caught in her throat. Her eyes shone with a mixture of fierce protectiveness and lingering terror—the look of someone who had stared into the abyss of loss and barely escaped.

Jim felt his own laughter bubble up, lighter than he'd expected, as he shook his head. The motion made his hair brush against his forehead. Though he knew her threat was half in jest, the raw emotion thickening her voice wrapped around him like a safety blanket. For the first time in his reckless young life, the idea of being grounded—tethered to home—didn't chafe. It felt like shelter after a storm.

Doppler burst through the doorway in a flurry of striped nightclothes, his spectacles askew and hair sticking up in wild tufts.

"I thought I heard a commotion!" he exclaimed, voice cracking with excitement. Captain Amelia followed at a more measured pace, though the usual military precision of her movements was softened by the rare, unguarded smile lighting her features.

Amelia crossed the room with purposeful strides, her feet padding against the hardwood. She scooped up an enormous stack of letters from the writing desk—how had Jim not noticed them before? The thick parchment rustled like autumn leaves as she extended them toward him, the wax seals catching the lamplight in flashes of crimson and gold.

"Word's gotten out about you, Mr. Hawkins," she announced, her crisp accent warming with unmistakable pride. "We've been receiving letters all week from the most prestigious schools in this part of the galaxy." Her eyes gleamed. "They all want you."

Silver's booming laughter filled the room, his flesh hand coming down to ruffle Jim's hair again with affectionate roughness.

"Didn't I say ye had the makings of greatness in ye?" He crowed, his eye crinkling at the corner. "Gonna rattle the stars, ye are!"

Jim's hands shook as he accepted the heavy bundle, the weight of possibility nearly buckling his arms. The parchment felt impossibly smooth beneath his fingertips, each embossed crest and official seal more unbelievable than the last. His breath hitched as he recognized names that had always belonged to distant daydreams—the Montressor Naval Academy's anchor emblem, the swirling galactic script of the Pelsanian Institute, even the legendary silver star of the Centauri Flight Program.

Tears blurred his vision as he shuffled through the letters, each one a key to futures he'd never dared to imagine for himself. The room seemed to tilt around him, the reality of his changed circumstances settling over him like stardust. In this moment, with his mother's hand on his shoulder, Silver's pride warming him like sunlight, and a galaxy of opportunities spread across his lap, Jim Hawkins felt the universe expand before him in ways both terrifying and exhilarating.

Sarah’s hands, warm and trembling, cradled Jim’s face, her thumbs brushing away the dampness on his cheeks before she pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead.

“I’m so proud of you, Jim,” she whispered, her voice thick, as if those words held the weight of every sleepless night, every worry, every prayer she’d ever sent into the universe for him.

And just like that, the feeling returned—that overwhelming, dizzying sense of luck, of being seen and chosen, as if the cosmos itself had tilted in his favor. The letters in his lap weren’t just parchment and wax seals; they were doorways—portals to a brighter future—now laid before him like a map of stars waiting to be navigated. The treasure, heavy and real, was more than gold—it was a second chance for his mother, for the Benbow Inn, for them.

A soft, breathless “Woah…” slipped past his lips before he could stop it. His skin tingled, alive with something electric, and his vision blurred as tears welled up, hot and insistent. He didn’t know whether to laugh or sob, so he did neither—just clung to the moment, to the people who had fought for him, believed in him, loved him despite every reckless mistake.

Without second thought, he flung one arm around his mother’s shoulders, his fingers twisting into the familiar fabric of her nightgown, while his other hand fisted in Silver’s tunic, tugging them both into the tightest hug he could manage. Silver didn’t hesitate—his arms, one warm flesh, one cool metal, enveloped them both, pulling them close with a strength that felt like safety, like home. Jim melted into the embrace, his face buried against Silver’s shoulder, breathing in the scents of salt and engine grease, his mother’s lavender perfume, the faintest trace of Doppler’s pipe smoke still lingering in the air.

He didn’t need to think. The words left him in a whisper, raw and honest, against the fabric of Silver’s shirt.

“It was worth it.”

And it was. Every scar, every loss, every leap into the unknown—because here, now, with his mother’s arms around him and Silver’s steady presence at his side, with a future brighter than any treasure and a family stitched together by starlight and second chances—

Jim Hawkins finally understood what home really meant.

Notes:

I've got two sequels in the works for this story! The first one is about all the drama that happens while Jim is in the hospital. Amelia is *stressed* and lying to her superiors, Delbert needs a drink (and so does Silver), and Sarah needs therapy (and maybe a hobby).

The next sequel after that features Jim reentering the world as a disabled person, learning some things about the Terran Empire that weren’t mentioned in the history books, challenging the powers that be, and basically becoming an intergalactic Indiana Jones/Steve Irwin.

Amelia also goes full Orange Cat and commits hella treason.

UPDATED June 11, 2023:

I rewrote a few portions/added more to this entire fic. Nothing plot-changing though! Most of the changes are in this chapter, where I made it more obvious that Jim is dreaming/hallucinating, because I think some people got scared away by the hanging scene! I also made it so he’s not just comatose the entire time he’s in the hospital. He has moments of lucidity, but he’s also really drugged up and out-of-it.

I’ve been working on the next two parts to this series, and my writing + the story have evolved a lot, so I felt the need to revisit this fic and bring it up to par. That, and I really just wanted to sprinkle some more drama and hurt/comfort into this chapter lmao

Chapter 5: Illustration

Summary:

🛑 Blood Warning!
Here's an illustration that I've been working on. I must have six different versions of this, but I'm pretty happy with how it finally turned out.
Silver is THE HARDEST mf to draw, I swear.

Notes:

I rewrote a few portions/added more to this entire fic. Nothing plot-changing though! Most of the changes are in chapter 4, where I made it more obvious that Jim is dreaming/hallucinating, because I think some people got scared away by the hanging scene! I also made it so he’s not just comatose the entire time he’s in the hospital. He has moments of lucidity, but he’s also really drugged up and out-of-it.

I’ve been working on the next two parts to this series, and my writing + the story have evolved a lot, so I felt the need to revisit this fic and bring it up to par. That, and I just wanted to sprinkle some more drama and hurt/comfort into the final chapter lmao

Silver maneuvered the skiff alongside the Legacy, his movements sharp with urgency as he hauled them both onto the deck. Jim’s body was betraying him—his limbs heavy as lead, his fingers twitching uselessly at his sides. Even breathing was a struggle now, each inhale shallower than the last. Jim twisted his arm and flexed his fingers, but he couldn’t manage anything more than that. He was shutting down.

- From Chapter 4

For the full-size/better resolution image click here: LINK (AO3 desaturated/blurred the image a bit)

Notes:

Now I need to gush about my plans for the next two parts of this series. I’m going in DEEP and if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I at least want people to know where I was going with the rest of this series.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

One major aspect of the story is when Jim learns that the Terran Empire is actually a violent and tyrannical regime. I go into Silver’s backstory, and how he turned to piracy because he wanted to bring wealth back to his people. Learning about the true history of the Terran Empire influences Jim’s decision to NOT join the Navy, and he pursues other endeavors instead. There are plenty of opportunities for him that aren’t military-related (Plus, I just want Jim to keep his rattail lol)

Captain Amelia also goes full Orange Cat and commits hella treason.

Another thing - Joseph Gordon-Levitt is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and thus a new headcanon was born: Jim and Sarah are Jewish.

So now Jim and Sarah are ethnically Jewish in my fic, for no reason other than they can be. It has no real impact on the plot and is more of a nod to Jim's voice actor, but I’m kind of obsessed with the idea now and needed to share.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of You Give Up A Few Things, Chasing A Dream